


Metal Ghost (Not) Solid B: The Phantom Pleasure

by MeinongsJungleBook



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alien Ghost Robot Sex, Alien Sex Toys, Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Bickering, Bumblebee the shipper, Character Development, Character Study, Dirty Talk, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Feelings, Foe Yay, Ghost Robot Sex, Gothic Romance, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Loneliness, Longing, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Nihilism, Other, Porn with a little bit of Plot, Rejection, Relationship Development, Relationship Study, Robot Sex, Sex Toys, Sexual Fantasy, Spectral Fisting, Spectrophilia, Starscream is a troll, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Teasing, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, Voyeurism, body mods, if porn scenes strung together with relationship development counts as plot, reassurance, sexy worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-07-27 16:04:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeinongsJungleBook/pseuds/MeinongsJungleBook
Summary: An instructional tale on how to not let an annoying inconvenience such as incorporeality stand in the way of a blossoming romance.AKA: The story of how Starscream upgrades his imaginary friend to his waifu.





	1. More Than Needed to Meet the Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Keep Warm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9457931) by [spockandawe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe). 



> In case you're here mainly because of any of the pairings this fic is tagged with, I'll let your know now that this is primarily a Bumblebee/Starscream fic. Megatron/Starscream and Starscream/Wheeljack only play a very minor role. Starscream/Windblade plays a major role in chapter 3 (with a side order of Bumblebee/Starscream/Windblade) and a moderate role in chapters 4 and 5, but beyond that, this is overwhelmingly a starbee story. If you're down for that, I hope you read on.

Bumblebee didn’t know how much longer he could stand this; having to just stand back and watch as an impotent phantom while Starscream ruined lives was completely intolerable. Being intangible was bad enough in of itself, but it was absolutely maddening when it meant he was powerless to wrestle Starscream away from carrying out the horrible schemes he seemed to cook up almost daily. Given that he could no longer fight Starscream with his fists, it meant that all he could do was try and compensate with the only weapon he had left, which was his voice. So Bumblebee didn’t let up; he criticised and chastised and shouted and nagged and whined and did whatever he thought he possibly could to try and deter Starscream from being so Primus-damned _evil_.

Bumblebee didn’t need to sleep now that he was…dead he supposed, so if he wasn’t going to get any rest, neither was Starscream, not until he agreed to give up all his wicked machinations. Starscream responded to Bumblebee’s unrelenting pestering by either pretending he wasn’t there, or, generally after such a period of pretending he wasn’t there, throwing a shrieking fit that often involved hurling things through Bee’s incorporeal form. Bumblebee had recently had Starscream’s desk fly through his face, so now that Starscream had gotten that out of system, he was back to pretending Bee didn’t exist, but Bee was still making every effort to ensure that Starscream would be lobbing another piece of furniture at him soon enough.

“And you know I don’t approve of the Badgeless, but if you _have_ to have a secret police force you could at least give them more sick leave,” Bumblebee nagged as Starscream shuffled into his chambers with a strong air of physical, mental and spiritual weariness. Starscream flopped down onto his roomy recharge slab and stared blankly at the ceiling as Bumblebee continued to list off all the things he found despicable about Starscream’s rule. Starscream went on ignoring him as his hands started to idly wonder over his frame, slowly tracing the seams in his plating and spiralling inwards towards sensitive nodes.

“And another thing, I think that you should be-…Starscream, what are you doing?” Bumblebee eyed Starscream’s hands as one of them stroked the panel on his torso that concealed his interfacing ports. Starscream continued to ignore him as his other hand slipped down between his legs.

“Starscream I’m right here!” Bee yelped as he watched Starscream’s hand start to trace around the panel that housed his wetware.

“No you’re not!” Starscream snapped as he continued his self-stimulation. A moment later the panel on his side slid open to reveal his interfacing ports. Despite the fact he lacked an actual body, Bee still felt his face tingle with the electric charge of bashfulness at the sight of Starscream’s plug and play equipment on display. Bumblebee had spent a large portion of his life as a spy, and that had gotten him into some pretty strange and awkward situations in the past, so it wasn’t as though he was a stranger to catching people in uncomfortable and compromising positions. However, something about the fact it was _Starscream_ of all people’s interfacing equipment that he was currently looking at made him feel as out of his depth as a newbie scout. He shouldn’t have to see the Decepticon SiC’s interfacing equipment; it didn’t matter if Starscream was technically a neutral now, this was just too weird.

But no, Bumblebee couldn’t let a bit of awkwardness deter him; for some reason Starscream of all people could see and hear him, and Bee had to seize the opportunity to use Starscream as some kind of conduit to impact Cybertron for the better for all it was worth, “A-as I was saying…” Bee went on as Starscream’s hand danced teasingly over his interfacing ports and he gave a tiny moan of pleasure. “Ahem, so I think you should be doing something about…” Bee did his best not to lose track of his thoughts as Starscream started to grind his hips against the hand between his legs, “…a-about the structural damage to the…” the panel between Starscream’s legs gave a _click_ and slid smoothly back, before his spike emerged from its housing at an almost lazy pace, and then stood pressurised in a matter-of-factly kind of way like an out-of-left-field interjection against Bee’s argument.

_Nope._ Bee was drawing the line here; he could nag at Starscream when he was governing, or scheming, or refuelling, or at the washracks, but he wasn’t going lecture Starscream on the ethics of rulership while the jet fiddled with his joystick. Bee was out.

“ _IguessI’lljustleaveyoutothat_ ,” Bee blurted out as he spun on the spot and briskly made his way to walk through Starscream’s chamber wall – the fastest exit – forgetting that Starscream’s room was thirteen floors up and that there was nothing on the other side of said wall but open air.

Bee felt an automatic shock of fear at first, but for most of his journey to the ground he just felt stupid.

***

Turned out that leaving Starscream to it was maybe not the best idea after all, because doing so had made Starscream realise that if he wanted to be rid of Bee, he just had to start self-servicing. So now in any private moment when Bee tried to offer any sort of criticism or advice Starscream’s hands would just fly straight to his crotch and Bee had to get The Pit outta there. It was making having any positive impact on the state of Cybertron damn near impossible for him, and Bee thought that Starscream must have stripped all the paint off his palms at the rate he was going.

This couldn’t continue; Bee needed Starscream to listen to him…plus he also getting a little worried Starscream might end up blowing out his fuel pump or something. Whatever it took for Bumblebee to put a stop to this particular strain of Starscream’s foolishness, he would just have to see it through.

“You can’t keep ignoring the problem in the Decepticon ghetto Starscream; that’s going to blow up in your face sooner rather than later,” Bumblebee said sternly, doing his best to ignore Starscream’s hands as they both slid down the glass of his cockpit. “You need to do something about it, and by ‘do something’ I don’t mean increase Badgeless patrols, I’m talking about enacting actual long-term positive change,” Starscream just spread his legs as he lay on his recharge slab and Bee continued on. “They were your people for four million years Starscream; you have as much if not more responsibility to them as you do everyone else on this planet,” Bee noticed that comment got a little twitch from Starscream’s face, but Bee’s attention was soon drawn from this area when he heard Starscream’s interfacing panels click open.

Bee gulped; he couldn’t leave, not this time. He would just have to try and ignore what Starscream was doing and go on lecturing him. Besides, _surely_ Starscream wouldn’t be able to continue on if Bumblebee was right there moralizing at him. Maybe he would finally get through to him when Starscream realised that he could no longer self-pleasure while Bee felt the need to have a go at him.

“Maybe you could earn some goodwill with them if you just did something to show you cared about their wellbeing, like improving infrastructure in the ghetto,” Bee put his best effort into sounding as unfazed as possible, and he managed to pull it off quite well.

Starscream’s head snapped over in Bee’s direction and he narrowed his optics at him in response to his continued presence, but then he made his own rather convincing show of being unfazed as he went back to looking up at the ceiling with a zoned-out expression and started moving his hands against his exposed interfacing equipment.

Bee did his best to keep his gaze above Starscream’s waist – despite the distracting noises coming from below – and went on talking, “You could at very least do something about all the cracks and potholes in the roads out there, but I bet what would really go down well is providing more accessible energon outlets.”

Starscream made no indication that he had taken in a word Bee had just said; his optics were offlined and his lips slightly parted as he started arching his back up off the recharge slab, but Bee persisted, “It wouldn’t be too difficult to run an energon pipeline from Metroplex to the outskirts of the ghetto; that would make them less reliant on black market profiteers.”

Starscream’s head suddenly snapped back to Bee, and he looked at him with an exasperated expression, “How can you be so naïve? Obviously if I provided them with an energon outlet they would immediately overtax it, deliberately break it and sell off what they’d stockpiled to each other on the black market, just like they’re doing now.”

Bee felt a little bit of triumph at the fact he’d at least got Starscream to pay attention to him, but that was then overwhelmed by awkwardness when – despite the fact he was trying not to look – Bee realised that Starscream hadn’t actually stopped playing with himself after turning to argue with him. Well…if Bee continued arguing with Starscream he would have to stop touching himself in order to focus on debating, so Bee figured he should just keep going, “Well how can you be so cynical? You think my idea wouln’t make any difference? Well how does not doing anything about it make any difference?”

“I _am_ doing something about it! Why do you think the ghetto is the most heavily patrolled part of the city? Shows of power are the only tactics Decepticons respond to,” Starscream retorted angrily.

Bee was still trying not to look, but he could tell from the movement of Starscream’s upper arm that he had actually _increased_ the rate at which he was pleasuring himself. Ok, this was getting even weirder, but Bee couldn’t help but reply to Starscream’s last comment, “So is that why you never listen to me?”

Bumblebee made the remark out of almost a year’s worth of frustration without really stopping to think what purpose saying it actually served, and if he had known how Starscream was going to seize upon it he would have kept his mouth shut, “Oh I bet you’d just love to show some power right now wouldn’t you Autobot? Remind this wicked Decepticon of his place in the only way he understands. So tell me, what’s my place? What position would you put me in if you had the power to force me to do what you want?”

Starscream’s voice had the familiar venom it usually carried when they argued, but there was also an unmistakeable note of lasciviousness to it this time. Bee froze, completely thrown off kilter by the curveball Starscream had pelted at him, “W-what?” he stammered.

“Oh don’t play coy Bumblebee,” Starscream said, his voice now a purr, “you’re the one who always follows me into my chambers; clearly you want something from me. You might as well just tell me what it is; who knows, I might be willing to give it to you…” A sly expression of wicked promise spread over Starscream’s face as alarms started blaring in Bee’s brain module.

“I want you to be a responsible ruler!” Bumblebee exclaimed with a note of panic in his voice, which emboldened Starscream like a predator that could smell fear from its prey.

“So you want to see _me_ with power then? Oh I can certainly accommodate that; shall I start telling you all the things I could do to you with that power?” Starscream grinned at him lecherously.

Ok, Bee was nipping this in the bud _right now_ , “Starscream, stop! We both know you’re just trying to avoid facing your problems right now, and you’re not helping anyone, especially not yourself. You’re just being foolish.”

Starscream returned his gaze to the ceiling – which was a relief for Bee – but he didn’t stop self-servicing, “Oh that’s rich coming from you,” he muttered.

“What?” Bee responded, just confused at this point.

“ _I’m_ the fool? As though your leadership was a string of wise, rational decisions,” Starscream huffed.

Well now Bee was just ticked off more than anything. He would be the first to admit that he hadn’t really been fit to lead Cybertron, or the Autobots, but he had genuinely done his best to be a rational, impartial leader, which was more than he could say about Starscream, “You really are the most insufferable person I’ve ever met,” Bee muttered bitterly.

Starscream didn’t look at him but his lips curled into an amused smirk, “Well you did always used to say I was special, didn’t you? I’m _so_ glad I still occupy a singular place in your spark even if I didn’t live up to your earlier expectations, because – _hngh_ – we all know I just _live_ for what you think of me,” now Starscream was the one who sounded bitter. “By the way, I know your ego can get in the way of your… _ah_ …your c-comprehension so let me help you out: that was sarcasm.”

At this point Bumblebee had no idea what Starscream was even talking about, though he had _definitely_ noticed that Starscream was now self-servicing more enthusiastically than ever. While he was still trying to keep his optics focused above Starscream’s waist, the sounds coming from below were giving him a pretty good idea of what was happening down there. Also one of Starscream’s hands, which was now dripping with fluid, kept wandering up his frame to play with his seams and turbines, before wandering back down to do exactly what it looked like it had been doing, if the sounds were any indication. Bee didn’t understand how Starscream kept going with such vigour while still arguing with him...oh _frag_ that was precisely what Starscream was getting off on, wasn’t it? Bumblebee felt filthy.

“Starscream…you’re just rambling nonsense,” said Bee weakly as he wondered what could possibly happen to him next to make his life/death even more of a joke.

“ _Aaah_ that’s…that’s all it ever is to you, isn’t it? _Nonsense._ You’ve never really listened to what I had to say…n-never really cared. You always just cared about getting to fight your war, i-isn’t that right Megatron?” The name hit Bumblebee like a null-ray blast as he realised that as soon as Starscream had stopped looking at him he had entered into a masturbatory fantasy with Bee’s voice cast in the role of the former Decepticon leader, and Bee felt at least ten times dirtier.

“Ok I’m out,” said Bee flatly as he turned to make his leave, this time fully aware that walking through Starscream’s wall would lead to a thirteen story drop and honestly not really caring.

“Wait!” he heard Starscream gasp from behind him, and against his better judgement Bee turned back to look. Starscream had turned onto his side with one hand down on the recharge slab in front of him for support and the other still down near his wetware. His expression was a strange mix of foggy lust and sharp, confrontational determination, “If you’re not going to listen to my words, maybe you’ll pay attention to my actions. Perhaps I _should_ do more about the Decepticon ghetto; maybe I should make an example of some of the known troublemakers…and maybe some of the suspected troublemakers as well.”

Bumblebee knew damn well that Starscream was most likely just saying this to rile him up so he’d stick around and keep arguing, especially given how much Starscream was evidentially enjoying it, but Bee couldn’t take that risk. If Starscream really was getting another terrible scheme into his head, Bumblebee had to do something to try and talk him out of it, “You know exactly what will happen if you do that; there will be violence, and riots, and people on both side will get hurt and probably killed.”

“Well you said I wasn’t doing enough about it, and your ideas are useless, so I’m brainstorming,” Starscream reached for the nightstand next to his recharge slab and started rummaging through some compartments in it as he continued talking, “and sometimes in order to solve big, brutish problems you need big, brutish solutions,” and with that comment Starscream pulled a massive false spike out a compartment in his nightstand.

Bumblebee just stared at it and wondered if he should bother being shocked by anything else tonight, and then decided he had just crossed over into apathy territory. Huge, grey false spike that looked about the right size and colour to be modelled on whatever Megatron was probably packing? Sure why not Starscream, bring it on; Bee had already seen the Decepticon SiC’s interfacing equipment, why not the Decepticon leader’s while he was at it? Maybe Starscream was about to reach into another compartment and pull out a false valve modelled on Soundwave. Maybe he had interface toys modelled on every member of Decepticon high command and Bee was about to witness a one-bot Decepticon orgy. Honestly at this point why not.

Starscream swung his legs around and he shuffled forward so that he was sitting at the edge of the recharge slab, before he spread his legs so that all his wetware was on very explicit display. Bee had got enough glimpses of it in his peripheral vision to already have an idea of what it looked like, but now that it was difficult not to get an optic-full of it – and at this point Bee had given up trying – he could see that it was even fancier than the rest of Starscream’s frame. Both his spike and valve were decorated with just the right amount of biolights to look interesting without being tacky, and bumps and ridges strategically adorned his spike in places that would no doubt be stimulating whilst also being aesthetically pleasing. It was pretty much what Bee would have expected from Starscream…not that Bumblebee had spent any time contemplating Starscream’s interfacing equipment or anything.

Starscream looked up from the false spike, locked optics with Bee and smirked, “So Bumblebee,” he said as he lined the spike up with his valve, “I don’t like your suggestion for dealing with the Decepticon problem, and you don’t like mine, whatever are we to do hmmm?”

“If you genuinely wanted to come to a reasonable solution, you wouldn’t be discussing it while fragging yourself with a copy of Megatron’s spike,” Bee said flatly.

Starscream chuckled as he worked the tip into his valve, “Recognise it do you? Well then tell me Bumblebee, did you get a taste of it before dear Megs got torn in half, or after you Autobots gave him a new lower half? I do hope Ratchet got this particular part right.”

Bumblebee made a disgusted noise at the suggestion, “Genocidal warlords are clearly your type Starscream, not mine.”

“I thought he was my type once, a very, _very_ long time ago, but thankfully I’ll never be making _that_ mistake again,” Starscream gave a little moan as he managed to envelop the entire tip. “You know how it is though, after we lost ninety-nine percent of the population, choices for playmates were rather thin on the ground and we had to – _ah_ – make do. I’m sure you Autobots can relate.”

Well, that was at least one thing any Autobot or Decepticon could agree on. In the _really_ early days protocols against recreational hook-ups among the ranks had usually been observed, but as the war dragged on with no end in sight and opportunities were lost as the population was whittled down, those protocols grew increasingly lax until even Ultra Magnus ignored them (well, sometimes). The lack of options amongst one’s own faction was one of the reasons Autobot/Decepticon was the most popular genre of pornography on the Autobot intranet…and Bumblebee _really_ wished he hadn’t remembered that fact right at this moment. He knew that many of those simulations starred simulacrums of real well-known Autobots and Decepticons (though by the end of the war that was almost everybody) and now he couldn’t help but wonder if this exact scenario had already been chronicled on a holorecording hosted on some seedy database somewhere.

“Well that doesn’t really explain why you have interface toys modelled on him now,” Bee pointed out.

“As much as I’m glad to be rid of the old rust bucket I can – _oh_ – admit that I do miss certain things about him…well, _one_ thing, but as you can see… _mmmmm_ …I have found a _fitting_ replacement,” and with that Starscream fully sheathed the spike inside him before he gave a long, pleasurable moan and leaned back, his wings held behind his back to prop him up. He tapped the base of the spike and a buzzing sound started to emanate from it, which made Starscream moan again as one of his hands started to lazily stroke his spike.

Before Bee could take the opportunity to leave and have a long, hard think about his death, Starscream said, “So aren’t you going to try and convince me of your idea to deal with the Decepticons? Look, I’ve got nothing to throw at you right now… _ahh_ …nothing that won’t be a hassle to pull out anyway.”

Even Bee found the idea of that flying through his face funny at this point. He knew that Starscream was just messing with him – that he’d been messing with him this whole time – but even if Starscream was just pretending to be receptive ( _ahem_ ), it was still better than what Bee usually had to deal with, so he supposed he had to at least _try_. Who knows, maybe Starscream would get classically conditioned to have a positive response to his suggestions, “I think you need to do something to provide the Decepticon ghetto with easy access to energon, to lessen their dependence on the black market.”

“They…they can get all the energon they want… _mmmm_ …if they just integrate into the main part of Iacon,” Starscream moaned. Bumblebee tried to look him in the face, but at this angle half of it was obscured behind his cockpit, and Bee found his gaze kept wandering to the hand working his spike at an increasing pace. Bee nervously wondered if this sort of thing was going to replace Starscream’s tantrums; was Starscream going to go back to ignoring him while growing increasingly irritable, before using all of his pent up frustrations to fuel his lust in another encounter like this? And then another? And another? Bee wasn’t sure what to think of such a vision of his future. He found himself wondering if this was how Starscream and Megatron had survived each other for so long; the only way they’d found to cope with being around someone who left them so enraged had been to fetishize that rage and channel it through lust. _Oh Primus_ , Starscream really was casting him as Megatron, wasn’t he? He was using him as a Megatron-substitute as much as he was using the false spike currently jammed inside him; one provided the physical stimulation, the other the confrontation.

“You just want them to integrate into Iacon so they’ll be spread out and their radicalism will be diluted,” Bee said distantly, trying to tear his optics away from the biolights on Starscream’s spike that kept peeking out from under his busy hand.

“Oh, _oooohhh_ , oh you _bet_ I do,” Starscream replied, his voice clouded with pleasure.

Well…ok, _fair_. Bumblebee wasn’t really sure why he had brought that up as an objection in the first place, it was completely reasonable. He knew he had some other sort of objection to Starscream’s point, that there was some other more sinister motivation underlying his decision that he needed to argue against, but whatever it was it was kinda hard to focus on right now, “You still need to…um…do something…” Bee tried to grasp for his train of thought.

Starscream leaned forwards with a shudder and groan of pleasure as his movement shifted the false spike inside him, “Sorry little Bee, what was that?” Bumblebee could see Starscream’s face properly in this position, and so he got a complete picture of the wickedly smug expression it was wearing. In the game the two of them had been playing since Bee realised Starscream could see him, or what Starscream at least perceived to be a game, Starscream currently had the upper hand.

“The Decepticons are still a problem,” Bee said, managing to grasp onto that aspect of the point he was trying to make and clinging to it for dear…not…life. Building upon that point however was proving more difficult.

“Oh I _know_ little Bee,” Starscream replied, the pace of his hand on his spike quickening, “but I need to know what you want me to do about it.”

“Er, I want you to-” Bee tried to reply, but Starscream cut in.

“ _Yes_ Bee, tell me what you _want_ me to do!” Starscream’s voice was awash with theatrical lust.

“I want-” Bee tried again.

Starscream interrupted once more, “ _Oh yes_ , you want something from me.”

“I want you t-”

“ _You want me_.”

“N-”

“ _Aaaaaahh_.”

“Starscream-”

“ _Aaaaaaaaaahh!_ ”

“Starscream!”

Before Bee could formulate a more descriptive objection to Starscream’s behaviour, Starscream gave a final cry of pleasure and arched backwards as ribbons of charge started to ripple over his frame and fluid spurted from the tip of his spike, splattering over the glass of his cockpit. Bumblebee stared at Starscream, transfixed as he trembled through his overload, before Starscream gave him one last, heavy-lidded look and then flopped backwards onto his recharge slab, spent.

Bee wordlessly made his leave, phasing back into the dark, empty shadow of Crystal City. Without Starscream’s very distracting presence to occupy his attention, Bee had a chance to properly reflect on exactly how he felt about what had just happened and – _no_. After dying Bee no longer had to refuel or recharge, so he’d be damned if he was going to give into _that_ particular urge, especially not in response to _that_ particular stimulus. Clearly his incorporeality had left him feeling desperate for intimacy, because there was no other way to explain him feeling anything more than mildly horrified disgust at what just happened.

***

Memories of what had happened just before he’d drifted into recharge filtered into Starscream’s mind as he returned to consciousness, and he gave an amused little smirk. He supposed it was ultimately pathetic, playing these games with himself, but he figured that if he was going to go insane he might as well get _some_ enjoyment out of the process, and that had certainly been more entertaining than listening to his conscience suddenly make a comeback after about four million years. He vaguely wondered if the way his hallucination had reacted was meant to say something about some deep-seated part of his psyche, or if it was just how he imagined the real Bumblebee would react to somehow being in that situation.

Starscream didn’t see the vision of Bumblebee while he was cleaning himself up in the washracks or refuelling, but he appeared a little later in the day. It seemed to be avoiding looking him in the optics, which was hilarious.

“Hello little Bee,” Starscream purred when no one else was in earshot.

“Oh so you’ve decided to acknowledge me today have you?” the hallucination replied.

“But of course, how else can I know what you _want_ from me?” Starscream said in a huskily sensuous tone, giving the vision of Bumblebee an ingratiating smile. The hallucination gave a little shudder and turned away from him with an uncomfortable look on its face. Starscream grinned; maybe having a conscience wasn’t so bad after all.


	2. Wheeljackin' It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sort of think of this story as a porny companion piece to my other fic [BOV](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15868284); that one fills in the gaps between the smut scenes that make up this one. 
> 
> Also, no I will not apologise for the title of this chapter.

Starscream couldn’t remember when he had last felt like this. For the last few million years his default emotional state had usually been a simmering concoction of frustration, rage and hate, bubbling over a sense of betrayal, fuelling an engine of perpetual scheming. Sure, there had been pleasurable moments peppered here and there; the satisfaction of seeing Megatron get hurt, the rush of victory in battle, the giddiness of seeing Megatron humiliated, the gratification of feeling a scheme click into place, the vindication of seeing Megatron’s plans fall apart. The particular form of pleasure he was feeling now however was a rare morsel; appreciation from a source other than himself had been scant throughout his life, while appreciation in this strangely chummy, intimate form was almost completely alien to him. Starscream had been hoping for a grand, public gesture from the masses befitting his greatness, but there was something about this little gathering of what he supposed could now be called his inner-circle that was in some strange way…almost better. Sure, they were here thanks to a misunderstanding, but Starscream figured that if he had to suffer through the fallout every time one of his carefully constructed schemes backfired, he was definitely gonna take the chance to enjoy the occasions said backfiring took the form of a party noisemaker rather than a fusion cannon blast.

The unexpected turn the night had taken had put him on a rare high, and whenever Starscream got a good thing he became voracious for more; short of being presented with Megatron’s head on a stick, he could think of one thing that would really make the night perfect. As he watched his guests make their leave he eyed one in particular, and before they had the opportunity to make it through the door Starscream slid up beside them and placed a staying hand on their arm.

“Leaving so soon Wheeljack?” Starscream asked, smiling slyly.

“Well er, I guess so; seems like the party’s over seeing as everyone’s leaving,” replied Wheeljack with a shrug.

“Not _everyone’s_ leaving; I intend to be here for the rest of night, and there’s no reason the party has to end, even if it’s just the two of us,” Starscream said, unmistakable suggestion laced in his voice as the hand he had on Wheeljack’s arm started to lightly trace a teasing pattern over his plating. Starscream felt his frame start to warm up as he considered the possibilities the rest of the night held, and how close he was to making those possibilities manifest. He had performed magnificently throughout the party, even the guests he knew to despise him had responded with civility when he had effortlessly engaged them, so surely the bot who had actually professed trust in him would easily fall to him now, on this night of all nights. This was where everything was finally, _finally_ going to start going right.

A congenial expression formed around Wheeljack’s optics, the type that would accompany a smile if he’d seen fit to give himself a mouth, and Starscream felt his spark pulse with gleeful anticipation. But then instead of moving into Starscream’s touch, Wheeljack took a small step away, before reaching out to give Starscream a very platonic pat on the arm, “Sorry buddy, I’m all partied out, and I’m trying to maintain some professional barriers.”

Starscream stared at him speechless for a brief moment before he said, “Ah, of course…well, no harm no foul…enjoy the rest of your night,” Starscream returned Wheeljack’s pat on the arm awkwardly.

“Thanks pal,” Wheeljack said warmly, before he turned to leave.

Starscream watched him walk out with a neutral expression, and once the door closed behind him Starscream walked up and thumped his head against it.

***

Bumblebee felt a twinge of sympathy as he watched Wheeljack gently rebuff Starscream’s advances, but he also felt a measure of relief that he wasn’t getting too involved with Starscream. The jet’s interest in his old friend had really concerned Bee after he’d found out what had happened to Metalhawk; it seemed like it didn’t matter if Starscream liked you or hated you, either way being close to him was dangerous. Well, dangerous if you weren’t already dead; Bumblebee was probably the one person who had been able to develop a personal familiarity with Starscream without having reason to be constantly paranoid for his own safety, seeing as that ship had already very much sailed.

The two of them had become closer, now that Starscream had started actually talking to Bee with regularity instead of just ignoring or screaming at him. After the whole…thing with Megatron…thing with _part_ of Megatron, Starscream had started acknowledging him for the sake of suggestively teasing him, which Bee had found incredibly awkward, but honestly he had also been sort of relieved to have someone talking to him like he was a real person, even if every sentence was a sleazy intimation. However, it didn’t take very long for Starscream to expand his conversational repertoire to include complaining to Bee about…well, almost everything, then that quickly evolved into Starscream making fun of various people behind their backs and for some reason expecting Bee to laugh along. Then somehow that developed into Starscream going on about what he thought would be the best aesthetic design choices for the interiors of various state buildings he was having constructed and renovated (bold and ostentatious seemed to be a common theme), then eventually he started bouncing thoughts about actual meaningful political matters off Bee. Naturally Bee took the opportunity to tell Starscream what he thought he should be doing, and _amazingly_ , on a rare occasion, Starscream _actually listened_.

Starscream was still the dangerous, manipulative narcissist he had been when Bumblebee had first found himself tethered to him, but he had…well, not _changed_ exactly, but Bee’s perception of him had. Bee was starting to see him as someone who actually _could_ change for the better, given the right push, and Bee was just about blowing out his circuits with the effort he was putting into trying to push him. After a lot of struggling, it seemed as though tonight they were taking a big step forward, which was surprising given how Starscream had spent most of the day moping and muttering increasingly dark and alarming things. He had gone from absolutely miserable to positively glowing (after passing through an intermediary stage of deeply confused) when his workmates had appeared to show him some appreciation for the holiday he had (inadvertently) established. Among people willing to give him the positive attention he constantly craved, Starscream had blossomed into a gregarious and charming individual who actually warranted it, and at not one point during the night did he jokingly threaten to have anyone killed. It made Bee feel strangely proud.

So Bumblebee couldn’t help but wince a little when it all ended with Starscream’s attempt to seduce Wheeljack being met with rejection. Wheeljack had let him down as kindly as possible, but judging by the way Starscream had slumped against the door head first and proceeded to just stare at the floor, he didn’t seem to be taking it well.

“Professional barriers…” Bumblebee heard Starscream mutter, before he pushed himself away from the door and threw his hands up in the air. “Who has professional barriers anymore?!” he shrieked in frustration.

A sudden change overcame Starscream’s whole demeanour, as his posture went from stiff and shaking with frustration to loose and slumped, and his irate expression drooped into unfocused dejection, and Bee realised that Starscream had just disengaged his Fluid Intake Moderation chip. Starscream had drunk plenty of engex during the party, but he’d remained completely sober; it seemed he was unwilling to allow himself to show the vulnerability of intoxication in any situation. Well, any situation besides solitude, and given that he still insisted that Bee was a hallucination, he had decided to let the intoxicating effect of the fairly copious amounts of engex he’d had over the course of the night all hit him at once.

“No…no one’s given a _frag_ about that scrap for millions of years,” Starscream slurred in a miserable voice as he made his way to his chambers, swaying precariously.

“We didn’t really have the luxury of professional barriers during the war; maybe Wheeljack thinks that now we’re making a new start, we should be doing everything right. He’s probably trying to help preserve your reputation,” Bumblebee offered, trying to salvage things as best he could.

“He just doesn’t want me. Nobody does,” Starscream muttered, his voice dripping with self-pity as he flopped onto his recharge slab face-first.

“Oh Starscream, don’t be like that,” said Bumblebee gently. “Just think, a few hours ago you thought nobody cared enough to show you any appreciation on Chosen One Day, and then an entire party brigade showed up.”

“They didn’t even come for anything I did on purpose,” Starscream whined, his voice lightly muffled since he’d buried his face in his arms. After a moment he made an effort to turn around, but he seemed to forget that he had wings, and found his way obstructed. After a couple of failed attempts and plenty of swearing, he managed to flop onto his back, at which point the interface panels covering both his plug and play and fuel exchange equipment all slid open. Bee looked away awkwardly; since Starscream had introduced him to his substitute Megatron he had tried to pull the same trick a couple more times, but it didn’t really work since Bee didn’t need to fight against Starscream ignoring him as much anymore, so he was able to just leave. Bumblebee didn’t think Starscream was trying to mess with him this time however; he seemed like he was just drunk, apathetic and frustrated.

Before Bee could leave him to it, Starscream miserably mumbled, “Why…why’s nothing I do good enough for anybody?”

Bee sighed, he couldn’t leave him in this sorry state, especially considering the dark place his misery had taken him to earlier that day. Oh well, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen most of this already, and if watching Starscream self-service was what it took to prevent a mass execution, then so be it. “Cybertron’s in a better state at the moment than it’s been in a very long time Starscream, and that has a lot to do with you. Don’t sell yourself short,” Bee said sincerely, because he had to admit that while Starscream had done a lot of things wrong, he had done some things right as well.

Starscream was silent for a moment, as though he was mulling over Bee’s words, before he gave a miserable sigh, though this time he sounded _slightly_ less miserable than before, “Been so long since I plugged into anybody,” he complained as he traced a finger around his fuel intake port, while his other hand stroked over the tips of his interfacing cables that were tucked in their housing on his side. Honestly, Bee could sympathise; even ignoring the time he’d spent dead, it had been a while for him as well. At least Starscream could break his dry spell at some point in the future though; unless Bee bumped into another friendly ghost in the void, it seemed as though his interfacing days were over.

“Someone will come along,” Bee assured him, trying not to feel a stab of jealousy at the thought of Starscream enjoying the intimacy that he could never have again.

“I want Wheeljack,” Starscream huffed petulantly. “Why doesn’t he want me? Issit my frame? Should…should I get a new frame?”

Bumblebee sighed, “Starscream, you don’t need a new frame; you’ve barely had that one.”

“I bet he hates my frame,” Starscream whined. “He…he hates this frame…he only said…only called the old one ‘not bad’…w-what does this mech want from me?” Starscream’s hands just dropped off his body to his sides as though he no longer had interest in his frame either.

Before Bee could think of anything to say Starscream turned his head and looked at him, “Am I attractive Bee?” he asked with a pitiful expression.

Bee swallowed. In all honesty, it wasn’t really something he’d given a lot of thought; throughout the vast majority of his very long life whenever he’d seen Starscream his reaction had generally been: here’s Starscream, That Bastard. He hadn’t then gone on to ponder whether or not he thought the SiC of the fascist enemy faction who had tortured him and tried to kill him on various occasions was attractive. Bee tried to consider the matter objectively; looking past the fact that this was Starscream (That Bastard), Bee quickly recognised that yeah, _of course_ Starscream was attractive – he was a narcissist who constantly upgraded his frame and fretted about his public image – he was obviously going to make sure he was attractive.

“We both know you are,” Bee told him, since it was the most honest response he could give. Bee then heard Starscream’s cooling fans kick on and the panels covering his wetware click open, so he…supposed it was a good response…or maybe it was a really bad one, Bee wasn’t really sure of anything anymore.

Starscream’s hands lifted from his sides and returned to playing with his frame, roaming downwards towards his exposed wetware. He continued to look at Bee however, his gaze as intent as it could be through the heavy haze of drunkenness, “Which part’s…the _most_ attractive?” he asked, taking his spike in hand.

Bumblebee wished his gaze hadn’t automatically flicked over to Starscream’s hand on his spike as he was asked that question. Then again, there wasn’t really anyway this situation could get much more awkward, and Bee figured that now that he in this deep there wasn’t much else he could do but keep going. He tried to consider the question objectively again; he generally preferred grounders in all honesty – while he could certainly acknowledge that certain fliers were attractive, things like wings and turbines didn’t typically turn his head.

“Your…you have a nice face,” Bee said, surprised with himself that that was the first honest answer that came to mind. Given Starscream’s face was so often twisted into a cruel sneer or smirk, Bee wouldn’t have thought he’d ever find it appealing, but as of late he’d seen a greater emotional range from Starscream then he might have seen in the prior four million years. Tonight had been especially novel; Starscream had actually seemed genuinely happy for once – not in the sense of showing smug or sadistic glee at his plans falling into place or his enemies falling before him – rather he had just looked sincerely joyful at having appreciation and company. When he looked like that, Bee realised he actually had quite an appealing face; in fact, when Starscream had smiled in almost giddy joy at the attention and (temporary) friendship being lavished upon him, he had looked…strangely adorable. Bumblebee quietly filed that notion away under “Strangest Thoughts I’ve Ever Had”.

Bee noticed out the corner of his optic that Starscream’s pace on his spike had picked up in response to his answer, but Starscream still wasn’t quite satisfied, “Just…nice?” he asked, sounding unimpressed.

The corner of Bee’s mouth quirked upwards as he replied, “Ok then, I think it’s _cute_.”

Bumblebee had to suppress his laughter as Starscream looked at him with a completely dumbfounded expression, which was compounded by his drunken disorientation. Even the movement of his hand on his spike was momentarily stopped in its tracks. Bee wouldn’t be surprised if no one had called Starscream cute at any point in his entire life up until now, and it looked like he was having a very hard time processing this new experience.

“…thanks,” replied Starscream after a few moments, still sounding utterly baffled, like he was throwing a stock reply at a statement he had no idea how to respond to, hoping it was the right thing to say. Bee had to put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from breaking into a fit of giggles.

The motion of Starscream’s hand on his spike returned as his other hand snuck around it to touch his anterior node, and he made a little noise that was…also kinda cute. Bumblebee added that observation to his mental list under the realisation that Starscream could sometimes look adorable. Starscream offlined his optics as he started to pleasure himself more intensely, and Bee figured it was probably his queue to leave. As he turned to make his exit however, he heard Starscream’s voice pipe up behind him to ask, “W-would you…plug – _ah_ – into me if you could?”

Bumblebee froze in his tracks. Ok, this was getting to be a bit much. That was…not a question he was going to examine because…he knew the answer, _obviously_. Did he? _Yes of course he did_. This was _Starscream, Second in Command of the Decepticons_ asking if he’d _interface_ with him, which was obviously not a hypothetical that deserved consideration. So Bee quickly pulled a trick out of Starscream’s handbook and turned the question back on him instead of answering it, “Would you want me to if I could?” he asked Starscream.

Starscream had onlined his optics and was now looking at Bee with an expression of scrutiny that was making him very uncomfortable, “Hmmm…yeah…guess so,” Starscream decided. “I like minibots…nice to have…mmmm…someone smaller for once.” Bumblebee felt a little stirring of annoyance at this typical minibot fetishizing comment before Starscream continued, “Remind me of… _ooohhhh_ ,” the name of whoever Bumblebee (or minibots in general) reminded Starscream of was lost in a moan, but Starscream continued to talk about them anyway, “…he didn’t h-have a mouth though… _like_ mouths.”

“Wheeljack doesn’t have a mouth,” Bee pointed out, then immediately internally cursed himself for bringing Wheeljack back up when Starscream had seemed successfully distracted from his pining.

Starscream’s pleasured moaning and whimpering turned into a sad little whine at the mention of Wheeljack’s name, before he replied, “Don’t want…Wheeljack… _ahh_ …cos of his…frame.”

Bumblebee felt a sympathetic little tug at his spark when he heard Starscream confirm what he already kinda knew; he hadn’t been chasing after Wheeljack because he just wanted a physical connection – Starscream of all people wanted an emotional connection as well.

“You’ve just reconnected Cybertron with the lost colonies Starscream; there are more options for everyone now, and I’m sure there’s someone out there for you. If you’re lucky they might even have a mouth,” Bumblebee said with a reassuring smile. Honestly he was a bit worried about what kind of person might take a romantic interest in Starscream, and what kind of influence they might have on him, but Bee supposed that would be something he’d have to work out when it came up.

Starscream gave Bee a drunkenly thoughtful look, before he said, “It’s too bad you’re dead.”

“Yeah it is,” Bumblebee agreed emphatically.

“We could’ve had… _aaaaahhh_ … _fun_ ,” Starscream moaned as he buried his fingers deeply inside himself, and Bumblebee felt a tingling heat from his frame that he refused to interpret as anything other than embarrassment.

Starscream continued to watch Bumblebee as he self-serviced, and Bumblebee wasn’t really sure what do to but watch him back. He wanted to leave, but he felt rooted to the spot by Starscream’s gaze. He didn’t want to look in Starscream’s optics, but every time he tried to look away from his face he found his optics wandering down towards Starscream’s busy hands, at which point he would quickly tear his gaze away and find himself looking into Starscream’s pleasure-glazed optics again. In his intoxicated state it didn’t take long for Starscream to bite his lip and groan as he approached the zenith of his pleasure. Bee waited in anticipation for his overload, but he didn’t seem to be quite able to tip over, and Bee just wanted this to end, so he decided to try and help things along, “You look _especially_ attractive like this Starscream,” he tried, his voice coming out a bit huskier than he had intended. That did the trick, as Starscream gave a gasp and ribbons of electricity stated to ripple over his trembling frame while his spike spilled transfluid over his cockpit. All throughout his overload Starscream’s gaze remained fixed on Bee, who was unable stop staring back. As soon as Starscream finishing riding the wave of his overload he immediately fell into recharge, and Bumblebee sorely hoped he’d drunk enough to interfere with his memory storage.

Afterwards Bee took a walk through Iacon, on the lookout for any suspicious activity that might require investigation, or any unnoticed infrastructural issues that might need addressing. Anything of note that could distract him from how…embarrassed _…_ he felt.


	3. When you play the game of thrones, you wind up a bitter, lonely tyrant or your idealistic enemy destroys you after you desperately try to seduce them over to your side. There's also a middle ground where a friendly ghost tries to teach you how to love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, please enjoy my most self-indulgent chapter yet.

Starscream listened to Windblade’s report on Metroplex’s status with finely calculated nonchalance. He didn’t need an in-person report from her; such data was fed directly to his console, and she wasn’t even that heavily involved in Metroplex’s workings anymore since she’d took on the responsibility of Camien delegate and other Cityspeakers had become available. Still, Starscream wanted her to be reminded of what her original position on his planet had been, and reminded of the power he had over her, and how easily he could use that power to take her back to where she’d started. He couldn’t have her getting cocky after Chromia had stolen away his blackmail material; Starscream may had lost his major advantage in their game, but he was by no means losing, and he was going to ensure she was aware of that fact.

She finished up her report and gave him a flat, expectant look, under no illusions in regards to his power play. Starscream would be the first to call her achingly naïve, but he couldn’t honestly say that she was dull – it wouldn’t be much of a game if she was.

“Hrmph, I was expecting his atmospheric regulators to be fully functional by now,” said Starscream with a tone of mild disappointment, zoning in the one piece of bad news in Windblade’s otherwise encouraging report, “I have to wonder if the current team would be having more success with them if the earlier care he was given was to a higher standard.”

As Starscream had expected, Windblade skipped past any further foreplay and got straight to the point, “Why am I really here Starscream?” she asked, making no effort to mask the irritation in her voice.

Starscream gave a little smirk and leaned back in his seat, “Well we haven’t had the chance to chat in private since recent events; I thought it might be a good idea to be sure we’re clear on where we stand.”

“Is that your way of asking if I’m planning on moving against you now that you have nothing on me?” she asked, sounding a little too confident for Starscream’s liking.

“Nothing? I didn’t realise you were so lacking in imagination delegate,” Starscream said as his smirk widened, “Chromia’s little crimes certainly made things a bit more convenient for me where you’re concerned, but I’ve never needed things to be easy to succeed.”

“If there’s one thing you’ve made abundantly clear Starscream, it’s that you have no interest in making things easy for yourself,” Windblade retorted, her confidence holding.

Starscream didn’t appreciate what felt like an all too accurate observation, but he wasn’t going to give her any indication that she could rattle him, so instead he just smirked some more, “I’m not in the habit of making things easy for anyone my dear, I’m not an easy mech, so if there’s anything you want from me you’re going to have to work hard for it.”

Starscream derived some satisfaction as he watched Windblade grit her teeth before she replied, “I’ve been working _so hard_ to try and get the bare minimum cooperation out of you and most of the time you won’t even give me that,” she hissed.

Starscream’s smirk split into a cruel grin, “Well maybe you’re still not trying hard enough, but there are still things you could do for me if you want the opportunity to do better.”

“I’m done being your lackey,” Windblade hissed. “You have nothing to manipulate me with anymore so just forget it.”

“Oh really?” Starscream replied, causally inspecting his fingertips. “Have you forgotten that I’m still the ruler of this planet? That I have the power to take things away from you, or perhaps grant them, if you offer me the right incentive?”

“There’s nothing you could threaten me with or promise me that would make me do your dirty work Starscream,” Windblade said with that tone of conviction that grated against Starscream’s nerves like the sound of claws on cockpit glass.

Starscream looked her squarely in the optics, “Not even Chromia’s freedom?” he asked with a smile.

Windblade’s optics widened and her wings twitched, and Starscream’s sense of satisfaction deepened significantly as he felt his grip start to close around her once more. The confidence in Windblade’s voice was replaced with caution as she asked him, “…what did you want from me?”

“ _There we are_ ,” Starscream said with a tone that mixed smugness with excitement, his own wings giving an involuntary twitch. “There’s that moral flexibility, that _practicality_ that could serve us both so well…and Chromia too of course. Now I’m not asking anything specific of you _yet_ , I’m just asking that you remain open-minded so that when the time comes that your skillset is required, you’ll be willing to make yourself useful.”

“So in other words you want me back exactly where I was before,” Windblade replied, her voice thick with loathing and rage burning brightly in her blue optics.

Starscream leaned forward over his desk, drawn towards the light of that rage like some little foolish, fluttering organic thing towards a flame, “Was where you were before really so bad? Your people like to go on about how metal must be tempered in a forge to be purified; you can’t really expect the process of reaching your full potential to be a comfortable one, can you?”

“What are you talking about,” she answered with an impressive sneer that Starscream thought suited her nicely.

“You could go far you know?” he said, gazing at her intently. “If you’d just allow yourself to do the things you know you’re capable of. I did, and now I’m the ruler of the planet. You’d like that kind of power, wouldn’t you?”

Windblade recoiled, “I am **never** going to be like you,” she told him emphatically, fury and horror laced in her tone.

Starscream’s smirk returned, “Never say never,” he purred.

Windblade threw the data pad she had been holding down hard on the desk in front of him as she quivered with rage. Starscream just smiled up at her as she spun on her heel thruster to leave.

“Recharge on it, hmm?” Starscream called after her as she stormed out the room.

Starscream got up from his seat and walked out onto the balcony of his office, scanning the streets and the skies on the off chance that he might catch the sight of Windblade leaving the building. He wasn’t able to wait long enough to see such a thing however, as soon he was leaping off the balcony and transforming mid-air, before rocketing directly upwards. His entire frame buzzed and burned and he desperately needed to work off the energy, so he fought against the gravity of his world until he hit the sound barrier, before he allowed himself to arc back downwards and race towards the ground. With the expert precision of someone who had been doing this sort of thing for over four million years, he started to slow his descent to make a graceful landing on the balcony of his apartment.

The flight had done little to cool off his burning agitation; his frame felt like it was crackling with energy. Thoughts of Windblade ran through his processor; a list of the things about her that enraged him looped through this mind alongside a list of the things about her that intrigued him – there was a lot of overlap. Some sick satisfaction seeped into him as his thoughts turned to fantasies of bringing her low and leaving her broken and miserable, wallowing in her failures and broken dreams. However, he found his excitement start to flare at the thought of instead empowering her – that is to say, corrupting her, because really, there was very little difference as far as Starscream was concerned. He imagined her finally shedding off the shackles of her naïve convictions and embracing the potential she so clearly possessed as a proud protégé at his side. It was a fantasy that could be realised if he didn’t have to destroy her first; her apparent moral purity would eventually crumble in the face of the practicalities of survival and the promises of power. She wasn’t better than him.

***

“She thinks she’s so above it all, but she’ll find herself ground down into the dirt soon enough,” Starscream ranted as Bumblebee sighed and squeezed the bride of his nose wearily. Windblade had been the subject of Starscream’s paranoid ravings ever since she’d shown up – so in other words, as long as Bee had been his “companion” – and he’d only grown more alarmingly obsessive where she was concerned as time had progressed, to the point where he’d seemed to have developed a full-blown fixation with her.

“You could have handled that situation a lot better,” Bumblebee muttered the usual mantra he went through in the wake of Starscream’s interactions with Windblade.

“Oh as though I’d expect you to do anything other than take her side,” Starscream gave the usual retort. It was true that Bee did almost unfailingly take Windblade’s side, which was unsurprising given the two of them were in much the same incredibly difficult position of having to try and work with Starscream for the greater good of everyone. Although she’d never met him and was unaware of his continued existence, Bee felt as though he had a strange, one-sided bond with Windblade; although she didn’t know it, they were working towards the same goal, and Bee admired her tenacity, conviction and compassion. He only wished that Starscream could find the same respect for her.

“If you want to ensure Windblade won’t move against you now that you can’t blackmail her, you could try, oh I don’t know, _being nice to her maybe?_ ” Bumblebee suggested in an exhausted tone.

“Oh because that won’t seem at all suspicious,” Starscream replied sarcastically.

Bumblebee threw his hands up in the air, “ _Seriously?_ Come _on_ Starscream, what’s the real reason you can’t give that poor bot a break?”

“Why aren’t you asking why she can’t give _me_ a break, hmm? _She’s_ the one who brought a saboteur to my planet; _she’s_ the one who undermined my hold over the colony worlds,” Starscream whined.

“You’re the one who sent a combiner to attack her world!” cried Bee in response, still managing to be incredulous over how unreasonable Starscream could get.

Starscream waved his hand, “Yeah well, she doesn’t know about that.”

“And she didn’t know that Chromia was the saboteur, and do you _really_ need me to explain why she’s trying to stop you establishing a dictatorial hold over our entire species?” Bumblebee was almost whining himself at this point.

Starscream huffed, “Yes.”

Bumblebee buried his face in his hand, “ _Urrrgghh_. Look. Starscream. _Tyranny is bad. How many times do we have to go over this?_ ”

“And how many times do I have to tell you that it depends on the tyrant?” Starscream retorted irritably. This was hardly a fresh argument; Bumblebee supposed he should have expected as much from a guy who’d spent the last four million years as a major player in a faction with the slogan “Peace Through Tyranny”. Still, against all expectations, Starscream sometimes seemed quite enlightened in this respect; he hated the cruel reign of the pre-war senators and Primes, and he hated everything about Megatron, and often gave very valid criticisms of them all. Yet, he couldn’t seem to make the final leap from _those particular_ instances of tyranny being awful to _tyranny in general_ being awful. Bee had noticed that despite Starscream’s tendency to deride the very notion of morality, he sometimes got strangely hung up on the insistence that his rule was righteous.

Bee sighed, “Well if you’re trying to sell the notion of benevolent dictatorship to Windblade you’re doing an awful job.”

Starscream scoffed, “She hasn’t got a clue what it’s like to endure the oppression of a truly cruel dictator.”

“You’ve threatened to have her killed on several occasions,” Bee stated flatly.

Starscream looked at Bee as though he was revaluating his intelligence in a manner that wasn’t favourable, “I was only being playful,” he said in the kind of tone that indicated he didn’t think he should have to explain himself.

Bee just stared at him blankly for a moment, “…you’re so weird,” he eventually pointed out.

“Pfft, is that so? Well it certainly beats conforming to the standards of the rabble,” said Starscream, waving his hand dismissively again. He fidgeted and paced around his apartment as he returned to his ranting, “If Windblade would only do the same she might actually make something of herself.”

“She’s the representative of her world, I’d say that’s something,” Bee opined. 

“And she got that far because she was playing the game, but she won’t go all in, so she’s going to lose,” said Starscream as he paced into his chambers.

Bee followed him automatically as he replied, “Why do you sound so irritable about that? I thought you wanted her to lose.”

“It frustrates me to see wasted potential, especially if it’s potential I can use,” Starscream replied as he flopped his aft down onto his recharge slab and reclined against the wall. He let his head fall back and placed hands on the insides of his thighs, and Bee suddenly realised where all this was going. It wasn’t the first time Starscream had come home…excited after a confrontation with Windblade; considering what Bumblebee had learnt about Starscream’s relationship with Megatron, he supposed it wasn’t surprising that clashing with her got him in the mood. Normally Bee left him to it, but Starscream apparently still had a point to make to him, “I’m not a needlessly cruel tyrant, if she’d just _submit_ to my leadership, and to her true nature, I could find a position for her I know she’d enjoy,” he said with a tiny shiver.

Bee shuffled uncomfortably as Starscream started to stroke the inside of his thighs, but he felt compelled to reply, “Or _you_ could try to be a bit more amenable to her perspective; you could compromise and cooperate with her instead of trying to force her to go along with what you want every single time.”

Starscream raised his head to give Bee a withering look, “You haven’t quite grasped the concept of ‘tyranny’ have you?”

“I haven’t quite grasped why you insist on having it; you always tell me what a terrible leader Megatron was, how he ignored your counsel all the time, but now you’re putting Windblade in pretty much the same position by refusing to cooperate with her,” it was a risky thing for Bee to say; comparing Starscream to Megatron was one of the quickest ways to enrage him. Starscream’s demeanour darkened, his optics burning threateningly, but his cooling fans also kicked on; Bee could only guess that was thanks to the context in which the subject was raised.

“I am far kinder to Windblade than Megatron was to me,” Starscream hissed.

“Yes I agree,” said Bee hurriedly, “but you’re still denying her the same consideration that Megatron denied you. If you really want to prove that you’re a bet- that you’re an _immensely_ better ruler than Megatron, shouldn’t you be treating her the way you thought Megatron should have treated you?”

Conflicting emotions flickered briefly over Starscream’s face, before he gave Bee an unconvinced but contemplative look, “If she wasn’t so blinded by moralist nonsense I would be more willing to listen to what she has to say, but until she develops beyond that naïveté there’s not much point.”

“Have you considered that maybe it’s not all nonsense?” Bee asked imploringly. “Especially now that we’re finally at peace? Things work differently now Starscream, we have to change to suit the times. Windblade’s used to peace; she could help you learn to navigate it.”

Starscream scoffed again, but he maintained his contemplative air, “Some things remain unchanging regardless of peace or war…still, she does have a perspective on Caminus that I lack, and if I could get her to be more willing to open up about her Cityspeaker abilities… _mmmm_ …could be interesting.”

Bee was pleased that he seemed to be _sort of_ getting through to Starscream, although he was also feeling a bit uncomfortable thanks to the way Starscream’s hands were roaming his frame with ever increasing enthusiasm. One of them was still tracing patterns on his thigh – patterns that took his fingers up to where his thigh met the edge of his interfacing panel – while the other hand had wandered up to his torso and was teasing the seams found there. Bee supposed that it was nothing he hadn’t seen before at this point, and not something that made it worth abandoning a promising opportunity to encourage Starscream to do the right thing, so he tried to just focus on what he wanted to say, “Exactly! If you go to her for advice, and actually take at least some of it, she won’t feel so powerless, so she’ll have less reason to want to take your power for herself.”

“Trick her into thinking she’s already the power behind the throne, so she doesn’t try to seize the throne… _interesting thought_ ,” Starscream hummed.

“Er, that’s…not _exactly_ what I had in mind,” said Bumblebee weakly.

“Well it could be tricky _sure_ , but I’ve pulled off more difficult manipulations before, and the rewards could be… _mmmm_ ,” Starscream gave a pleasurable little moan as his expression grew more lascivious. “Having Windblade in the palm of my hand and pliable at my fingertips while she’s deluded into thinking she’s the one in control… _oh that could be fun._ ”

Starscream gazed ahead for a moment – his expression making it clear that he was lost in some licentious thought – before he turned to his nightstand and started rummaging around in one of the compartments it contained. He pulled out a metal cylinder and then gave a flick of his wrist, and it extended into a thin rod with a small claw on the end. Bumblebee recognised it as a type of toy fliers used to stimulate their wings; typically the claw had magnets at its points and could conduct charge. Starscream used it to reach across his body so he could run the claw along the lower edge of one of his wings; tiny little sparks jumped from the tips on the claw to the wing as Starscream gave a pleasurable shudder.

While Bee had been trying to get through this experience with as much detachment as possible from _that_ particular aspect of the proceedings, he couldn’t help but stare at this display with intrigue. Partially preference but mostly circumstance had meant most of his intimacy over the last few centuries had been with other grounders, so it wasn’t the sort of thing he saw very often. Bee knew enough about fliers to know that their wings were all very distinct when it came to sensitivity, with every flier having their own unique web of highly receptive sensory clusters spread out over otherwise almost unfeeling wings. Bee found himself making note of where Starscream’s sensitive nodes appeared to be.

Bee then realised that Starscream was watching him as he stared at the toy ghosting over his wings, so he quickly tore his gaze away, only to get a better look at Starscream’s smirking face. Bee did his best to maintain a neutral expression despite the alarm bells that started ringing in his mind, and quickly grasped at something to say before Starscream could make some comment expertly crafted to embarrass him, “I don’t think Windblade wants to be the one in control, I think she just wants her voice to be heard and given fair consideration. You don’t have to _trick_ her, just be civil to her and listen to her ideas.”

“Oh you’d like that wouldn’t you?” replied Starscream, still smirking. “You’ve always been very preoccupied with having the two pretty jets with their _distracting_ wings to be _nice_ to each other, haven’t you? I suppose you sentimental Autobots prefer more tender displays.”

“Oh come _on_ ,” Bee protested, rolling his optics at Starscream’s suggestive tone. “You know it’s entirely possible for a person to want to see someone treat someone else with common decency without having a sleazy ulterior motive, right?”

“It’s also entirely possible for a bored, _frustrated_ little grounder to try and push a pair of jets into putting on a show for him,” said Starscream, now grinning cheekily. As he spoke, the panel on his torso hiding his interfacing cables slid back, before he then ran his fingers teasingly over the now exposed tips of his retracted cables, “Little pervert,” Starscream snickered.

Bee opened his mouth to protest against Starscream slapping him with such a label, but realised that it was kinda difficult to do so when he was currently watching him self-service. Instead he tried to turn it back on him, “That’s rich coming from the guy who drunkenly admitted to having a minibot fetish.”

“Pfft, I’d hardly go so far as to call it a _fetish_ ,” Starscream replied dismissively. “Interesting that you should choose to bring that up at this particular moment, however,” he added, giving Bee a suggestive grin.

Bee…wasn’t going to let Starscream get away with this. Starscream had a tendency of turning whatever he could into a game, preferably with the odds stacked highly in his favour, and the only ways to deal with it were to either refuse to play, or beat him at his own game. Bee had spent most of his time opting for the former option, but he decided to try a different tactic this time, “Look Starscream, say what you want about me, but I’m not delusional. If I really wanted to push you into interfacing with someone for the sake of my sick, voyeuristic pleasure, I would pick someone a little more attainable than Windblade. Let’s face it, she’s a bit outta your league, pal.”

Bumblebee tried not to let his sense of smug satisfaction show when he saw Starscream’s offended expression, “ _Excuse me?_ I’m the leader of our species!” Starscream squawked with indignation.

“Yeah well, so was I for a time, and look how that worked out for me. It’s not as though you or Metalhawk were all over me just because I was the one in power, and if it’s not enough for someone as status-obsessed as you, it’s definitely not going to be enough for a classy bot like Windblade,” Bee said, maybe letting a _tiny_ bit of smugness trickle through.

“Yes well, I’m a better leader than you were,” said Starscream defensively, jabbing the toy in Bee’s direction to emphasise his point; Bee flinched away from it instinctively, “and I’m not _just_ an excellent leader; I’m also an exemplary strategist and a deadly warrior, and that’s just the beginning.”

Bee crossed his arms, allowing the smugness to just radiate from him at this point, “Hmmm, sounds to me as though you don’t know what appeals to Autobots.”

“Why would I care about what appeals to Autobots?” Starscream sneered.

“Windblade wears the Autobrand,” Bumblebee pointed out, “and she would have definitely fit right into my faction if she’d shown up during the war. I can’t imagine her as a Decepticon, that’s for sure.”

Starscream continued to sneer, “Seeing as you’re apparently _such_ an expert, why don’t you enlighten me as to what exactly appeals to Autobots then?”

“Autobots tend to prefer partners that treat us with respect and don’t constantly deceive and manipulate us, for a start,” Bumblebee replied as Starscream rolled his optics. “We usually also want to make connections based on honest emotional intimacy, where we understand each other’s hopes and weaknesses and help one another be better.”

Starscream gave Bee a flat look, “That’s the most sappily delusional thing I’ve ever heard,” he replied.

Starscream often said things purely for the purpose of getting a rise out of Bumblebee, but there wasn’t any trace of that needling tone in his reply this time, rather it just sounded like him flatly stating his honest opinion, and Bee found that to be pretty sad, “Relationships like that actually exist!” he protested. “If you actually made any effort to form one, you might learn that firsthand. I think it would really do you good Starscream.”

“Flaunting my weaknesses for some other bot to exploit? I don’t think so,” Starscream sneered. “I’m not going to let Windblade or anybody else sift through my mind like I’m one of her half braindead Titan pawns for her to plug into and manipulate,” Starscream paused for a moment as though caught in a memory, his wings quivering slightly, before he put down his current toy and turned back to his nightstand to fish a squat little rectangular box from one of the compartments. He pressed a button on the side which caused the top of the box to slid away and reveal the tips of some cables next to a set of ports, “The only connections I intend to make are below spark-level,” he said with a mixture of haughtiness and hunger as he let other panel on his torso retract to display his interfacing ports.

Bee felt a little tingle of nostalgic lust at the sight of the device; a feedback box was a more high-end interfacing toy that had become hard to come by towards the end of the war when their increasingly dwindling resources were being funnelled towards the creation of more practical things. It had been over a century since he had last seen a feedback box, but he clearly remembered that on the occasions he had been lucky enough to possess one some of his lonelier postings had been made a mite more tolerable.

Starscream rested the box on his thigh as he selected a cable to pull from it and plug into one of his ports; he then pulled one of his own cables from its housing and, after a moment of deliberation, plugged it into one of the ports in the box. Bee’s curiosity got the better of him, and he peered down at the box to see what kind of connection Starscream had made; judging by the cables and ports he had used it looked as though he’d picked the connection that created a pleasant charge that crackled in the space between one’s plating and protoform. It was a sensation that was quite reminiscent of the charge of another bot’s overload jumping over to one’s own frame via physical contact; Bee thought it was an interesting choice.

Starscream let his head fall back again as coloured lights on the box lit up in patterns to reflect the inputs it was receiving and in turn outputting back into him. Feedback boxes enabled bots to plug and play with themselves; they received whatever sensations the user was sending and then sent them back for the bot to experience, giving the bot the simultaneous pleasures of being the giver and receiver of the signal. Bee could tell from the patterns of the pretty pulsing lights on the box that Starscream was steadily amping up the sensation. Bee watched Starscream run his fingers over his remaining interface ports with one hand and use the other to extract one of his unused interfacing cables just enough to roll the tip between his thumb and index finger. Starscream gave a little moan followed by a shiver as the lights on the feedback box showed the sensations he was sending himself grow more intense.

This time Bee tore his gaze away before Starscream was able to catch him staring; Starscream was in a state of distraction, but Bee wasn’t done with him yet, “So what you’re saying is that you don’t have what it takes to charm an Autobot like Windblade?”

Starscream didn’t bother to raise his head to look at him, “What are you blabbering about?” he said irritably.

“I told you that Autobots tend to go for people who can make an honest emotional connection with them, and you’ve said that you’re not able to make that connection,” Bee replied.

“Not able? Not foolish enough, more like,” Starscream huffed.

“Or not brave enough,” Bee said with a little curl of his lips.

That made Starscream raise his head and look at Bee with distain, although it was softened a little by a haze of pleasure he had about him, “Sorry but I don’t buy into your idea of Autobot bravery; your so called ‘heroes’ are more like suicidal idiots.”

“But you clearly believe in taking risks if there’s a chance of getting something good enough out of it,” Bee indicated.

“Well yeah,” Starscream replied, “not being a self-sacrificing moron doesn’t mean being a coward who’s too afraid to chase any of life’s glory.”

“So you believe bravery is doing what it takes to get what you want despite the risks,” Bee surmised, “but by refusing to open up to anybody because of what it might cost you, aren’t you denying yourself something you want?”

“What do you know about what I want?” Starscream sneered.

Bumblebee smiled, “I know you want it all. I know you want the praise and admiration and adoration of the masses, but I’m pretty sure you want that on a personal level as well. You want someone who understands you and supports you, through everything. You want the touch of someone who wants to make you feel good because they care about how you feel for your sake, not just because they want something out of you.”

Bee found Starscream staring with an expression that was…difficult to read. After a few moments the jet asked, “…and how would this person touch me exactly?”

Bee surprised himself when he replied without even giving himself a moment to consider whether he ought to answer, “They would have intimate knowledge of every little sensitive spot on your wings, and they would know exactly how you like to be touched there. They would start at the base of your wings and work their way up, while watching your face to make sure they were getting it right.”

The hand that Starscream had been running over his ports suddenly dropped and started scrambling around at his side, before he got a grasp of the toy he had let go of earlier. He started using it to stimulate the base of one of his wings again, and he gave a little tremble and cry as it moved over the sensor clusters clearly concentrated there.

Bumblebee felt strangely compelled to keep going, “They would tell you how much they want you – how much they _need_ you – and you would know that they really mean it. They would lay you down on your recharge slab and tell you to let them do all the work this time; they just want to give to you. They’d take their time, working their fingers into all your seams, stroking your face and hands, whispering to you about how beautiful you look when you feel good.”

Any of the previous distain Starscream’s expression had held was nowhere to be found now; he just stared at Bee, pleasure clouding his optics as the hand that had been playing with his interface cable moved down to stroke the seam at the top of his thigh.

Bee continued, “When they were done getting you warmed up they’d shift their attention to your wetware panels; if they weren’t already open by that point they’d kiss you there and run their tongue along the seams until you opened for them. Then they’d run their tongue from the base of your valve, up to your anterior node where they’d leave a sucking kiss before they then continued to run their tongue up to the tip of your spike.”

Starscream gave a moan as he threw his head back and let his wetware panels retract; a fairly copious amount of lubricant spilled forth onto the recharge slab and his spike sprang forth fully pressurised. Starscream’s hand then followed Bee’s story, with two of his fingers running from the base of his valve up to his anterior node, where they stopped for a moment to rub against it, before they then continued to run up to tip of his spike, trailing lubricant as they went.

Bumblebee couldn’t stop there, “They’d take the tip of your spike into their mouth before they slowly worked their way down to swallow the whole thing, while teasing the rim of your valve with one their hands. They’d then start moving their mouth up and down your spike, steadily increasing their pace, while they worked their fingers in and out of your valve at a matching rate, making sure to hit all the most sensitive spots inside.”

Starscream wrapped the hand at the tip of his spike around the shaft while his other hand dropped the toy it had been holding and moved to his sopping valve to slip a couple of fingers inside. Starscream started moving his hands in tandem; one moving up and down on his spike, and the other working in and out of his valve, the latter moving up to his spike a couple of times to spread lubricant before returning to its primary role inside him. Starscream gave little cries and moans of pleasure as he steadily increased the pace, and Bumblebee noticed the signals he was sending himself via the feedback box were starting to match the rhythm.

Bumblebee just stared at the hands going to work on Starscream’s wetware, a little voice at the back of his mind telling him that he probably shouldn’t be doing this going ignored. After a little while he realised that Starscream was looking at him, expectation showing through the pleasure painted on his face. The little voice told him that he had no obligation to meet Starscream’s expectations, but Bee found himself opening his mouth anyway, “Eventually they wouldn’t be able to resist taking your wetware, after all you’ve modded it out so enticingly. Choosing between your spike and valve would be difficult, but they’d make up their mind to take your valve so they could still use their hand on your spike and look you in the optics.”

Starscream slipped a third and fourth finger into his valve, working it open before sliding the fingers in and out as Bee continued to speak, “They’d go slowly at first, savouring the feeling of being inside you, but get faster as they pushed both of you closer your overloads.” Starscream’s hands mimicked Bee’s description.

“But before the end, they’d slid their plug and play panels open and ask if you’d like to make your favourite circuit. You’d be happy to receive your favourite signals from them, but you’d decide to also send their favourite signals back to them, because you want them to feel good just as they want you to feel good, because you care about them just as they care about you,” Bumblebee whispered loudly enough to be heard over Starscream’s roaring cool fans. Starscream was staring into space, making desperate little noises, while Bumblebee stared at him and continued to talk, “So the two of you would link together, giving each other pleasure because your happiness matters to them and their happiness matters to you, and you’d work together to get what you both want. You’d like that kind of connection, wouldn’t you?”

At that moment Starscream’s distant gaze came into focus to lock optics with Bumblebee, and Bee found himself looking into an expression of such desperate longing that he was left dumbstruck. After a few seconds he recovered his voice to wrap up his story, “As you both approached your overloads they would start to desperately cry out about how good you made them feel, and how much you mattered to them. _They adore you._ ” Starscream’s hands moved furiously as he continued to stare at Bee, as focused as he could be through a haze of bliss. Bee stared back at him as he went on, “Soon they wouldn’t be able to stand it any longer, and they would overload, and you’d feel a wave of charge from their frame wash over you, and you’d know that you were the one who made them feel that,” Starscream cried out as his entire frame started to tremble, and bright blue sparks rippled outwards from his spark right to the tips of his fingers and ends of his thrusters, while reams of fluid erupted from the tip of his spike. Bumblebee stared at him, transfixed, while Starscream stared back, somehow managing to find Bee’s gaze while lost in his pleasure.

In the wake of his overload, Starscream slid down the wall to lie on his recharge slab, the feedback box falling off his thigh to clatter onto the slab next to him. He then just stared at the ceiling, his expression of an odd mix of hazy afterglow, exhaustion, and contemplation. Bee didn’t stick around to find out whether he was going to fall into recharge; he had to go.

***

Bee phased back to Crystal City, as signals from his phantom body and several voices in his head all vied for his attention. The voice in the back of his mind that had been trying to stop him from going down the road he had just taken was now ranting at him about the consequences he would probably face. However, that voice was being drowned out by another voice in his head that was excitedly going on about what had just seemingly been revealed to him and how he could use that knowledge going forward. Louder still, another very confused and panicky voice in his mind was gibbering as it tried to piece together and make sense of certain elements of what had just happened, and one element that particularly troubled it was the desperate heat that currently wracked Bee’s phantom form.

As he tried to understand what had just happened, Bee thought back to how he’d managed to get into that situation; he was trying to deal with Starscream’s fixation with Windblade, wasn’t he? He’d been trying to make him act less antagonistic and more cooperative towards her, because if they just worked together properly, it would be good for Cybertron. After all, they were both driven, intelligent bots who wanted to see Cybertron flourish, so if their efforts were combined who could say how far they’d go? Bee had always been a peacemaker, trying to get his combative friends to see the value in each other and the benefits of working together harmoniously. On a few occasions those peacemaking efforts had… _escalated a little_ , usually resulting in a good time for all involved.

He found himself imagining such a scenario with Starscream and Windblade, in which his efforts to make them cooperate would result in Starscream kneeling in between Windblade’s legs. Bee imagined his hand on the back of Starscream’s head, guiding him to go down on her, softly mumbling encouragement in chorus with Windblade’s delighted little noises as Starscream finally put that infuriating mouth of his to good use. He imagined Windblade’s hands resting on each of their heads, her fingers gently playing with his horns as she received the appreciation she was owed and Bee finally received a tender touch.

Eventually she would gently push Starscream away so she could climb into his lap, while Bee would scoot around behind Starscream. Windblade would plug her interfacing cables into Starscream’s ports while Starscream reciprocated, before she’d then lower herself onto his spike, the two jets gasping in pleasure as she did so. Bee would continue to whisper in Starscream’s audial from behind him, offering encouragement and reminders to consider his partner’s needs, while he also reached down to play with the base of Starscream’s wings in the spots he knew him to be sensitive, making the jet shudder. Windblade would grasp Starscream’s shoulders to lift herself, while Starscream held her hips to help her, and the pair of them would work together to achieve a mutual climax.

As Bee imagined this display he found that he was able to retract the wetware panels of his phantom form, freeing his spike and valve. Bee hadn’t even opened his panels since his last frame change, let alone since he had died. He slumped against a ruin and took both his spike and valve in hand as he continue to imagine Windblade and Starscream working together in the most intimate possible way. He envisioned the way they clutched at each other desperately as the sparks of a shared overload washed over them both. Bumblebee imagined himself scuttling out the way as Starscream collapsed backwards, bringing Windblade with him, before she’d shakily climb off him with a contented smile.

Windblade would then give Bee a nod of understanding as she’d step back and let him have his turn. As Bee imagined himself getting into position between Starscream’s legs and slowly working his spike into the jet’s dripping valve, he fell forwards onto his hands and knees with a desperate groan before he took his spike in hand at the same pace he imagined himself entering Starscream. He would go gently at first, with his characteristic tenderness, but he would grow more unrestrained as he went. Bumblebee thought it likely that Starscream’s tolerance for rough play was higher than anything Bee could unintentionally do to hurt him, and in his fantasy this assumption was fact, so Bee ploughed into him with abandon while Starscream wrapped his legs around him and cried out in delight.

Bee rutted into his hand desperately as he imagined Starscream writhing below him, and it didn’t take long before over two years’ worth of frustration and deprivation culminated in an explosive overload that finished him with a yell that echoed around the lonely void that contained him. Bumblebee collapsed forward, and while part of his mind told him that he should probably be horrified and/or disgusted by what had just transpired, all he really felt at that moment was the relief and afterglow of the first overload he’d experienced since his death.


	4. Your body is so sweet now / I'm saying trick or treat now / You know I've got to have ya / You sexy sweet cadaver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some extra spicy starbee with an entree of character study in a windscream wrap.

Starscream was in a contemplative mood; the most recent incident in the string of near-death experiences that seemed to make up his life had left him feeling more introspective than usual. Maybe it was the fact that Sentinel Prime of all people had been the one to almost kill him this time; that unexpected blast from the past had reminded him of old times, when the Decepticons had been a resistance against a cruel, oppressive regime, instead of _being_ a cruel, regressive regime. Hearing Sentinel’s revolted description of the society Starscream ruled had filled him with a certain measure of pride; if the dictatorial so-called Primes of the past hated his world, then he had to be doing something right. 

Sentinel’s denigrations had encompassed both Starscream and Windblade in the same sentence. Maybe that was partially why Starscream found it so hard to stop thinking about her lately; few things could forge feelings of comradery between two bots quite like a shared enemy, particularly a shared enemy who shared the same demeaning opinion between both of you. He...liked the idea of them being grouped together, even when it meant them both being classed as scrap. So many people considered them to be polar opposite creatures – Windblade herself seemed to hold that opinion – but Starscream knew better, he saw the same potential within her that was manifest in himself. Sentinel Prime, despite all the obscene and cruel bigotry that shaped his perspective, recognised this as well, in his own warped way. He saw where Starscream overlapped with Windblade, and viewed it as a mutual malformation, but Starscream knew that what a Functionalist saw as an aberration was really the fire that burned down oppressive orders and lit the way for a new and brighter world. 

Sentinel had tried to destroy him, and he’d come alarming close to succeeding, but Windblade had saved his life. It wasn’t the first time she had rescued him, and he had done the same for her in the past, but on none of those prior occasions had they saved each other by putting themselves in such peril. Self-sacrifice was something Starscream was familiar with in the abstract sense, although it wasn’t something he had encountered very often close up. Any Decepticons prone to self-sacrifice had done so a long time ago, leaving the self-interested to endure. But now Starscream was surrounded by these Autobots, neutrals and colonists, with their alien altruism and self-sacrificing tendencies, and it all left him feeling very on edge. These were motivations he didn’t understand deeply enough to properly account for in his schemes, and this had caused Windblade to slip from his grasp when Chromia had confessed her crimes, yet had also saved him when Windblade had gambled her life for his. 

Maybe _that_ was the reason Starscream couldn’t stop thinking about Windblade – because of this sense in which they differed, instead of the sense in which they overlapped. Windblade was riddled with these altruistic tendencies that had proven to be both a bane and a boon to him, and clearly he needed to understand them if he were to avoid the troubles they’d been causing him, while finding a way to fully exploit them to his advantage. So it only made sense that he found himself thinking about her a lot; knowledge was power after all, and if he wanted to obtain the power that came from unravelling the enigma that was Windblade, he’d have to think about her. Think about how in his moment of desperation she had moved her face towards his and exposed that most intimate part of herself to risk her life in the hopes of saving him from their shared enemy... 

...anyway, self-sacrifice and its associated derangements were difficult to get a thorough understanding of, but Starscream had been making some progress. The fact that his subconscious had manifested as one of the most excruciatingly moralistic bots he’d ever known with the determined intention of teaching him moral lessons seemed to suggest that on some level he comprehended these concepts, but the information was just filtering up to the surface of his psyche in a particularly insane way. After Chromia had given her confession he had ranted to his hallucination in outraged confusion, trying to understand why she’d do something so stupid. Bumblebee had told him it was because Chromia valued Windblade's wellbeing enough to sacrifice her own for Windblade’s sake, and Starscream found himself rattled by the notion of caring for another person enough to suffer so much for them. It wasn’t as though it was the first time Starscream had encountered the idea in his four million years of life of course, but it was still so contrary to the behaviour he was accustomed to that it nevertheless seemed like such a strange and alien concept. And stupid of course, it was a _stupid_ thing to do, but...Starscream couldn’t help but wonder what it must feel like to care for someone so much that it made the suffering seem worth it. 

Now that the business with the Combaticons was taken care of and he had more time to think about these things, he had realised that he’d entered a transitionary period. He no longer had the threat of Swindle's secrets coming to light, Onslaught and co. had finally been dealt with, Chromia’s confession had significantly altered how his relationship with Windblade would have to work, and he felt...different. He felt like he was prepared to try some new approaches, to try and understand some of these strange notions that had alluded him for so long, and use that understanding to improve his world and himself in some unprecedented ways. And so, as Starscream had a tendency to do during these transitionary periods, he’d changed his frame. 

He inspected himself in the mirror, trying to decide if his new body looked as good in the mesh as it did as a holo-projection. It wasn’t a massive departure from many of his older frames, but it still made him feel fresh. He flexed his new fingers, working out any assembly line stiffness, and wiggled his wings to see how far they could comfortably move, feeling the satisfying stretch of previously unused cabling getting a work out. After he’d checked himself out from several angles, he decided to get a second opinion, “So what do you think?” he asked Bee, who had been loitering around the edge of the room, looking steadily more bored. 

“I’m still not entirely sure why you felt you needed a new frame again already,” the minibot replied. 

“I told you, I felt like it, and I can," Starscream responded. Given the rate he sometimes went through frames, he was accustomed to brushing off such comments. 

“Well if it makes you happy,” Bumblebee said with a shrug. 

“Well then, _what do you think?_ ” Starscream interrogated. 

Bumblebee gave what was steadily becoming his iconic sigh of exasperation, “Starscream, you already asked me for my opinion on every detail of this frame when you were deciding on it. We spent three hours discussing colour schemes before you decided on the exact same colour scheme that you already had. The same colour scheme you choose almost every time you switch frames.” 

“I don't have the exact same colour scheme; my fingers aren’t blue this time. Anyway, now that you’re seeing it in the mesh, what do you think?" Starscream was relentless when it came to many things, and this was one of them. 

Bumblebee sighed again and then gave Starscream an appraising look, and Starscream adopted a pose on instinct. 

“It’s sleek,” Bumblebee decided. 

Starscream made a carry on motion with his hand, “And?” 

“And shiny,” Bumblee added. 

“It’s fresh off the rack, of course it’s shiny. What else?" Starscream prompted. 

Bee sighed for the third time in the last minute, before he gave another attempt at satisfying Starscream's insatiable ego “Your new frame fuses the charm of several different epochs of Cybertronian fashion into a coherent design; it optimises form and function in a way that suggests both speed and strength; the lines of your different components flow into each other in way that’s interesting and satisfying; you’ve balanced your use of colour to avoid both blandness and garishness and instead arrived at a look that intrigues but doesn’t overwhelm,” Starscream preened as Bee continued, “and could your turbines be any more prominent this time around? Seriously, I mean at my height I already get a face full of them constantly but now they look like they’re coming to get me.” 

Starscream was taken by surprise in the middle of his preening by this tangent, and he turned to give Bee a blank look for a moment, before he burst into a fit of sniggering, “Well, you’re welcome.” 

“If I was still corporeal I’d be worried about having an optic taken out,” Bee replied, a grin forming on his face. 

Starscream sniggered again as he regarded this cheeky little manifestation of some repressed part of his psyche. Bumblebee wasn’t like the other hallucinations he’d occasionally suffered over the course of his tremendously long, trauma and neurosis-rich life; for a start the medication that had given Starscream relief from such afflictions in the past was utterly useless this time around – he'd upped the dosage as much as he’d dared but it had made absolutely no difference. Beyond that however, Bumblebee just behaved so differently from any other visions that had tormented him before; when his hallucinations had taken on the form of people in the past, they had been far more simplistic, single-minded spectres, endlessly ranting at him about the same topic. While Bee was certainly fixated on Starscream’s moral growth, he was far deeper and more dynamic than any of his former hallucinations, and as absurd as it seemed, their relationship had evolved over time, to incorporate more such causal exchanges and playful snark (not to mention, Bee seemed to be growing gradually more open to playing with him in certain other ways as well). 

Also Bumblebee sometimes knew things that...that Starscream must know somewhere in his copious memory stores, or had subconsciously figured out, making Bee a manifestation of this information floating up into his consciousness. Sometimes Bee knew things that Starscream had a hard time figuring out how he could have possibly known, but there had to be some way, after all the Cybertronian mind was incredibly complex and skilled at self-deception. Starscream had heard countless tales of impossibly magical things having perfectly mundane explanations, and had used the lessons learnt from those tales to manipulate plenty of poor schmucks. After all, it had taken being on the receiving end of such manipulations to learn that anything that seems to satisfy one’s desire for meaning is actually just someone using you, and it’s only kind to pay that lesson forward. 

No, Bee was just some particularly evolved cognitive construct, but that didn’t mean that Starscream couldn’t make good use of him; he was good at making use of people - imagined or otherwise. Bumblebee demonstrated that on some level Starscream comprehended the things he needed to comprehend to deal with the types of bots he now found himself surrounded by, and while he had no intention of actually adopting their mode of thinking, it was certainly useful to understand it. Also...while most of it was certainly sentimental pap, maybe there was something of value embedded somewhere within it that Starscream had dismissed too readily, having mistook it for the sappy, deluded nonsense it was nested amongst. He thought back to the.... _interesting_ encounter he and his spectre had shared the other night; _that had been fun_ , and while Bee had insisted on carrying on with all that schmaltzy twaddle about opening up emotionally to someone, there might have been _something_ to _some_ of what he had said. Making oneself emotionally vulnerable to anyone was the height of foolishness, but having some sort of... _understanding_ with an intimate ally, and maybe sharing a _very reasonable and conditional_ measure of loyalty with them...there _could_ be something to that. Possibly. Maybe. Probably not. But still, it was worth _some_ consideration. 

Well, if he was going to have to live with his subconscious _making_ him consider these kinds of things anyway, he might as well squeeze as much enjoyment out of the process as he could. He gave a sly smirk and asked his hallucination, “You want to see the rest of my new features?” 

Bee gave him a look that combined wariness with intrigue and a dash of bashfulness, “Er...alright.” 

Starscream smiled, “Well come along then,” he said as he inclined his head in the direction of his chambers, before he turned to make his way towards them. 

***

Bee watched Starscream saunter towards his chambers. Well, it was pretty clear where this was going... _where_ _Starscream_ _was trying to make it go,_ that was – Bee had no obligation to go along with his games. But...what if he wanted to? He thought back to what had happened the other night, and what had followed in Crystal City. After the afterglow had passed, some of the horror and disgust with himself he had expected had finally shown up, but it hadn’t been nearly as strong as he would have thought. And why should he have to feel horror and disgust anyway? Ok...he was clearly kind of attracted to _Starscream_ of all bots, and back before he had died that would have rightfully warranted all kinds of horror and disgust, but things were very different now. For one, he literally hadn’t been touched by anyone in any way for _years_ (and honestly it had been even longer since anyone had touched him in a specifically erotic way) so it was understandable if he was feeling a bit touched starved and desperate, which would inevitably lower his standards. What’s more, his idea of who Starscream was had changed dramatically over these last couple of years, and while Bee still didn’t consider him someone he would pursue in any other scenario, he wasn’t in any other scenario, he was in _this_ scenario. If he was saddled with the task of trying to make Starscream a better person, wasn’t he allowed to try and derive _some_ enjoyment from the process? 

He stared at the door to Starscream’s chambers for a few moments before he found himself walking over to it and peeking his head inside cautiously and curiously. He found Starscream sitting on his recharge slab with his back leaning against the wall, a look of mild disappointment on his face which rapidly evaporated when he spotted Bee at the door. He gave Bee an inviting smile plastered over a mischievous expression, followed up by a ‘come hither’ gesture. Bee found himself obeying as he crept towards Starscream’s recharge slab, before he left his cane leaning against the wall and sat on the slab facing Starscream, whose smiled widened. 

“So,” Starscream said as he ran a finger from his shoulder down to one of his very prominent turbines, “you like turbines, huh?” 

“I didn’t say I liked them,” Bee replied, “I said I can’t escape them.” 

Starscream’s mouth quirked in amusement, “But surely your perspective grants you some added appreciation.” 

Bee matched Starscream’s amused expression, “You’re saying being forced to be around something all the time inevitably leads to fondness?” 

Starscream’s expression wavered a little before he said, “Anyway, you’re not here to see what you’re forced to see constantly, you’re here because I promised to show you something new.” 

Bee’s optics automatically flickered towards the closed panels between Starscream's spread legs, and he felt the temperature of his phantom frame start to rise. 

“But one needs to be in the right sort of mood to reveal certain things about themselves,” Starscream sighed theatrically, giving Bee an expectant look. 

Bee gave a theatrical sigh of his own, but honestly he was more amused than anything, “There’s something I forgot to mention about your new frame before – in addition to all that other stuff I said, it’s also really, _really_ sexy.” 

It wasn’t a lie – maybe a bit of an exaggeration, Starscream wasn’t Bee’s ideal preference when it came to frame type – but Bee did genuinely think he looked quite attractive. Starscream seemed convinced at least, since his smile widened further and he started to trace around the seams of his wetware panels, “Are you saying that you want me?” he purred. 

Bee hesitated for a moment, before he simply replied, “Yes.” He supposed he did in some sense, since he’d wandered into Starscream's chambers of his own volition, and was currently eying the jet’s panels as his core temperature rose. 

Starscream gave a tiny moan as his wetware panels shifted aside. Well, that was a lot easier than Bee was expecting. Starscream’s new spike and valve were as pretty and enticing as they had been on his previous frame; they were mostly the same shade of silvery grey that coloured his face and fingers, but with strategically placed splashes of red and blue paint and glowing biolights that pleased the optic. Ridges and bumps adorned his spike and Bee couldn’t help but imagine the sweet spots in his valve they would hit if he weren’t cursed with incorporeality, and he felt a tingling inside him at the notion. Starscream's swollen anterior node glowed a bold red, while a faint blue light shone from within his valve, tinting the colour of the lubricant that dripped onto the recharge slab. 

Starscream ran a finger from the base of his valve to the tip of his spike and back down again as he asked, “Do you have a preference for taking spike or valve? Assuming that’s how you like to interface at all, but judging by your expression, I feel like that’s a safe assumption to make.” 

It was a safe assumption to make. Bee didn’t tear his gaze away from Starscream's exposed wetware as he replied, “Honestly, I don’t feel as though I’m in a position to be that picky anymore.” 

Starscream gave a little chuckle that almost sounded sympathetic, though Bee assumed he must have been imagining that, “It almost feels cruel to tell you what this can all do knowing you can’t experience it, but you seem to be pretty good at using your imagination.” 

Bee _had_ to be at this point, “ _Tell me_ ,” he implored. 

Starscream ran his finger down to a large bump at the front base of his spike, “This is for anterior node stimulation, once a bot works their way down and takes my entire spike so that their node brushes against it, it gives the node a delightful electrical pulse as a reward, which also prompts their valve to ripple for my pleasure.” 

Bee nodded as he continued to stare. He’d been with a bot who’d had such a mod before, although he hadn’t told Bee what it did beforehand, so when his node had made contact with the mod it had been the very definition of a pleasant surprise. Bee felt his valve clench at the memory and he heard his cooling fans click on. He wasn’t sure how that was possible given that he couldn’t interact with the atmosphere around him, but it wasn’t as though anything else about his existence currently made sense. 

Starscream’s smile widened lasciviously and he started to move his finger up and down the length of his spike, “You like magnet-play Bee? Do you like that sensation of them pushing and pulling on the sensor clusters deep inside you? Or do you like having them run over your spike, or maybe placed on your node and left there for that unrelenting sense of stimulation?” 

Bee gave a little shudder, “Yeah, that’s...that’s all pretty good.” 

“I have a line of magnets embedded in my spike, and I can vary the strength and polarisation of them at will. Can you imagine me rubbing my spike up against yours, brushing against your node in the process, as I increase the strength of the magnets within it from base to tip? Can you imagine how that would feel Bee?” 

Bumblebee could to an extent, although it was nowhere near as good as the real thing would have to be. He gave a strangled little groan as he nodded emphatically, while he felt his spike start to pressurise behind his panel. 

“And after I’ve done that,” Starscream continued in a husky tone, “I’d slip my spike inside you, working you down the length until your node hit the base, rewarding you with that pulse. Then every time I’d thrust into you, making sure I went all the way in each time, you’d feel that sweet pulse against your node, again and again and again.” 

Bumblebee moaned as lubricant started to seep from behind his panel. He clenched his fists against his knees since his own spectral form was the only thing that felt solid to him. 

“Or perhaps you would prefer I place a magnet against your node, hmm? To pull at you as I pushed in. Either way, you’d get your magnet-play with me inside of you Bee – as I worked my way in and out of you I’d vary the ways the magnets in my spike pushed and pulled at the sensors within you, until I found the combination that really made you whimper,” Starscream purred as he slowly started to stroke his spike. 

Bee’s own spike was straining against his panel in a way that was starting to grow painful. _Frag it._ He let the wetware panels of his ghostly form slide back, letting his spike spring free and phantom fluid to pool beneath him. Now it was Starscream’s turn to stare. Bumblebee had a couple of mods, which had carried over to his spectral frame, but his wetware was certainly not as impressively adorned as Starscream's - yet Starscream stared just as intently as Bee had been staring at him, while the pace of his hand on his spike started to quicken. Bumblebee wrapped his hand around his own spike and mirrored him, while his other hand slid downwards towards his valve. 

Bee worked his hands up and down the length of his spike and in and out of his valve with increasingly desperate abandon as Starscream continued to speak, “What positions do you like little Bee? You’d fit quite nicely in my lap; you could hang onto my shoulder stacks as I bounced you up and down on my spike. Or maybe I could just lay you down on your back and hold your hands above your head as I thrust into you, going as hard as you begged me to.” 

Bumblebee’s valve clenched around his fingers at the thought as he gave a little cry, and his optics flickered upwards from Starscream’s wetware to look at his face, which was gazing at him with an intensely lustful expression. This sight made Bee tremble even more than the Seeker’s words. 

Starscream licked his lips hungrily and went on, “Not that we’d have to stick to any one position of course; I could take you in any way you needed, for as long as you needed, to work off all that frustration I can tell you’re feeling. You try so hard to get me to play nice with others, well let me assure you that given the right situation, I can play very, _very_ nice. I could be very nice to you Bee – you could consider it my show of gratitude, for all the work you put in.” 

Bumblebee’s own overload hit him by surprise; a shock of pleasure seized him as his frame started to tremble, and he gave a desperate cry while his vision momentarily glitched. As a wave of bliss swept over him, lighting up each part of his spectral form with ecstasy, he was able to briefly forget his deathly predicament, because in that moment of intense feeling it was impossible to believe that he was anything other than alive. When it was over he flopped over backwards, temporarily lost to any plane of reality. 

***

When some of Bee’s lucidity returned to him, he blinked to find Starscream looming over him on all fours, his hands on either side of Bee’s head and a smug expression of his face. Instincts developed over four million years of war caused Bee to startle and try to kick Starscream off of him, but when his legs passed through the jet ineffectively Bee’s more recently memories caught up with him and his demeanour turned to one of embarrassment for more reasons than one. 

Starscream gazed down at the bot beneath him with a sense of amused self-satisfaction; it had been a while since he’d received such a rapid and dramatic reaction from simply putting on a show, especially given he was only showing off a conventional spike and valve configuration. He had experimented with some wilder wetware configurations in the past – double spikes, tentacles, that sort of thing – and those had elicited some very enthusiastic reactions from certain bots, but he ultimately preferred the more classic spike and valve arrangement. After all, while the stranger choices went down very well with certain fetishists, the spike and valve had mass appeal, and one never knew who they might end up entertaining for an evening. 

Admittedly, the spike and valve configuration also held some nostalgia value for him, since it was the first recreational mod he’d ever had. Wetware equipment hadn’t been a feature deemed necessary for his function when he’d been constructed; while he’d been lucky enough to be built when it was in vogue for designers to show off their craft and build their brand by giving their creations a pretty face, mass produced models rarely got given any further unessential features. A nicely crafted face was good advertising, but wetware _generally_ wasn’t seen by enough bots to make it worth putting any artisanal effort into it, or in the case of Starscream and his batchmates, any effort at all. He’d been a few millennia old when Grid had paid to get him modded – he had told Starscream that they only had the shanix to give him either a spike or a valve and that he’d have to choose, but then he’d surprised him getting him both after all. It had been the most simplistic, unadorned spike and valve set imaginable, and Starscream hadn't had any idea of how to use it at the time, but breaking it in was _still_ one of the best frags he’d ever had. 

“Are you always this fast?” Starscream asked with a smirk. 

Bumblebee felt an embarrassed static build on the cheeks, “Give me a break, I’m dead,” he huffed. 

“Oh I’m not saying it’s a _bad_ thing, in fact some would say it’s a plus, just so long as you aren’t _spent_ ,” Starscream said, glancing down to check on the state of Bee’s equipment. 

Starscream’s scrutiny made Bumblebee buzz with embarrassment even more, and his hands shot to his crotch to shield himself from Starscream's judgemental gaze, “Look, I’m four million years old, I know how to control myself, I just had a lot of tension built up, and I think things work a little differently when you’re dead.” Bumblebee felt absurd and immature being on this kind of defensive, but Starscream seemed to have the ability to bring that out in people. 

“ _Sure_ ,” Starscream replied, still smirking, “but I’m still feeling a little hard done by if this is it.” 

Bee gritted his teeth, ashamed that he was rising to this sort of petty needling, but doing so all the same, “I can keep going,” he growled. 

Starscream’s smirk widened, “That’s the spirit...or rather, _you_ are I guess.” 

Bumblebee rolled his optics before he concentrated on taking control of his interfacing subroutines; though he didn’t think it ultimately really mattered given his incorporeality, he still willed his spike to repressurise, helping it along a little with his hands. 

A voice in Starscream’s mind told him that he had no right to feel this smug when Bee wasn’t even a real bot; there was no pride to be taken in playing power games with oneself, all he was doing was wallowing in what a damaged, pathetic creature he was. But, Starscream reasoned, wasn’t an important pillar of mental health self-control, that is to say, self-domination? If Bee was an expression of some part of his psyche, by finding ways to exert power over him wasn’t Starscream in a sense performing a form of self-therapy and taking back control of his own mind? Ha, check _mate_ , thought Starscream, satisfied that he’d shown yet another voice in his head who’s boss. 

“I would have been very disappointed if we had to end things before I got to tell you about my valve,” Starscream purred as he moved to straddle Bee’s head between his legs so that he got a good view. Bee stared up at the soft blue glow emanating from the opening that Starscream started to gently prise apart with his fingers, and he found that he no longer had to concentrate on getting his interfacing equipment working again. 

Drops of lubricant started to drip down and pass through Bee’s incorporeal frame as Starscream spoke, “The inside is ribbed of course, and I can adjust the size to be a perfect fit for any spike,” Starscream started to slowly work two fingers in and out of his valve as Bee moved his hand up and down on his spike at the same slow pace, trying not to lose control this time. “My callipers are also capable of some vertical motion, which means they can create a sensation not unlike suction. Not to suggest that I can’t rely on my mouth, but I like to have that free when I can to tell you exactly how it feels to have you moving inside me.” 

Bee shivered with pleasure, caught between the fantasy Starscream was suggesting and the reality that was currently occurring. He was enjoying the show, but _Primus_ he wished he could have the full experience, yet that longing sensitised him to what little he could actually experience all the more. Bee really hoped his overload didn’t catch him off-guard again; he didn’t know how long it would be before Starscream would get bored of teasing him for it. 

“My valve also conducts an electrical current; when you’re inside me you’ll feel a sweet tingling warmth travel up the length of your spike, before it washes through your valve as well, and then up your spinal strut to fill your frame with a feeling of delight. You won't even need to move within me to be brought to the brink of overload, just letting me wrap myself around you will be enough to bring you bliss.” 

Bee made a little desperate noise and Starscream smiled; how bad could he really be if such a morally uppity Autobot – even if he was an imaginary one – wanted him so badly? And if Bee was the expression of some long-buried part of his conscience, it had to say good things about his self-esteem if that part of himself desired him, right? 

Bumblebee wished that Starscream would hurry up and work himself up to overload already so that he could do the same. He thought that maybe he should be saying something as well to move things along, but he didn’t feel as though he could currently string together coherent sentences. Normally Bee knew how to resist overload when he was on the brink, but he was feeling so needy, which was making it more difficult, and he didn’t feel as though he had as much control over his spectral form. He tried to focus on things other than the sensation of rapidly building charge in his systems, and attempted to shift his focus to the parts of his frame that weren’t tingling quite so fiercely with pleasure. He decided to direct his attention to his heavily-armoured shoulder, a fairly non-erogenous zone, only to notice it was also tingling with a vague sensation, although it was not quite like the pleasure tingling throughout his interfacing equipment and protoform. 

Bee looked over to the shoulder to see that Starscream’s knee was overlapping with its edge, which was where he could feel the vague tingling. He turned his head to look at his other shoulder and saw that Starscream’s other knee was overlapping slightly with that one as well, and he realised that he could feel the same vague sensation. Bee had accidentally overlapped with Starscream and other people before, but when it had happened he'd always pulled away as quickly as he could since it had freaked him out, so he hadn’t stopped to pay attention to what it felt like. It was quite possible that it didn’t actually feel like anything and Bee was just imagining it, since the sensation was so light that it was barely there, much like the feelings one could imagine into existence when one just focused on a body part. He lifted the hand that wasn’t currently wrapped around his spike and tentatively ran his fingers through Starscream's thigh. He felt the same tingling, though it was a bit stronger in his much more sensitive fingertips. He still wasn’t convinced it wasn’t his imagination however. 

“Starscream, do you feel that?” he asked. 

Starscream wasn’t sure if this was Bee’s sorry attempt at dirty talk or if it was his subconscious trying to warn him of something on the edge of his perception. He turned his attention to senses that had been refined to detect any potential danger over the course of four million years of war, and noticed a vague tingling sensation in his thigh. He looked down to see Bee’s ghostly fingers running through that part of his body – it seemed his hallucination was developing a tactile component, which was _perhaps_ not a great sign...but maybe there was a silver lining, “Hmmm, I’m not sure...maybe you should try it somewhere I’m more sensitive to check,” he suggested with parodical innocence. 

Well...here was his opportunity for active participation, Bee figured. He started to trace his fingers along the seams of Starscream’s thigh, pushing them in so that the space of fingers and thigh overlapped ever so slightly, and then he began to work his way up towards Starscream's interfacing equipment. When he reached the base of his valve, he spread his fingers into a “V” so that one passed through each side of Starscream’s valve walls as he worked his way towards his anterior node. When he reached the front and gently pushed his fingers into the space the node occupied, he heard Starscream give a tiny gasp. Well, this just got a whole lot more interesting, Bee thought.

The ghostly touch of Starscream’s hallucination was barely even a sensation – it was like the lightest of teasing touches, but it was also the lightest of teasing touches in places that touches generally couldn’t go. The spectral fingers passed through sensors beneath the surface of his frame, gently tickling them awake. It still wasn’t as satisfying as a real touch, but it was better than nothing, and given that Starscream had been contending with nothing for a while, he was gonna take what he could get, “I’m still not sure if I can feel that; you’d better try again.”

Bee grinned as he formed his hand into a fist beneath Starscream’s valve opening, before he started to slowly raise it upwards so that it passed through all of Starscream’s valve walls, ensuring that his thumb passed through his anterior node in the process.

Starscream responded to Bee’s ministrations with a little moan, “Ah _yeah_ …whatever it is you’re doing down there, keep doing it,” he encouraged as he stroked his spike and his fans clicked on.

Bee started to move his fist up and down through Starscream’s valve, steadily increasing the pace, while his other hand worked the length of his own spike. He tried to keep the hand on his spike slower and steadier than the one he was passing through Starscream’s valve, because if he matched that pace on his spike he was pretty sure he would overload first, and the little sounds Starscream was starting to make really weren’t helping. After all the deprivation being dead had put him through, and all the tension that had built up between him and Starscream that he could no longer deny, the situation was already almost unbearably erotic for him. Now however, the excitement that came with the revelation that he could have some kind of physical impact on the real world, together with the knowledge that he was using that power to make Starscream feel good, was driving him dangerously close to the edge.

“Mmmm, you’re a versatile little nuisance, aren’t you?” Starscream crooned. The strange, ghostly sensation moving through his valve, together with his hand on his spike and the overall bizarre eroticism of the situation was steadily progressing him towards a state where he could overload. Not that he’d _have_ to anytime soon – he could theoretically hold off for a good while yet and torment the spectre struggling beneath him, but unfortunately he had other things he’d have to attend to shortly, so he would have to wrap this up sooner as opposed to later. But…it occurred to him that there was something he wanted to try first.

“Hold on for a second,” he said, and he felt the ghostly movement through his valve stop. He shuffled backwards and looked down at the ethereal body beneath him, to see the desperate, desirous look on Bee’s face, and felt his ego swell with satisfaction, but he also felt an absurd sense of fondness lance his spark. He brushed it off as another manifestation of his ego, given that Bee was a part of him and all. Starscream got himself into the position he wanted, and then lowered himself down, so that he felt Bee’s spectral spike ghost through his valve.

Bee left out a cry of pleasure and arched his body upwards towards Starscream without a thought. The sensation of Starscream moving through his spike still wasn’t as intense as the touch of his own hand, but it was stronger and sweeter than anywhere else he had overlapped with Starscream so far, and the simple knowledge that it was the sensation of _somebody else_ made it feel so damn good, “ _Yes, oh Primus, please, yes_ ,” he gibbered deliriously.

Starscream grinned as he started to move up and down; Bee’s hand was still wrapped around his spike, so as he moved he still got the sensation of an entire ghostly fist passing through his valve. He continued to stroke his spike as he enjoyed the view of Bumblebee unravelling with desperate pleasure.

Bumblebee let himself just drink in the strange new sensation of Starscream passing through his spike for a few moments, before he remembered that he still had a hand wrapped around himself, and he started to stroke his length at the same rate that Starscream moved, so that he got the two sensations at once. He writhed as he struggled with the conflicting desires to overload and hold out a while longer, and without thinking he tried to use his other hand to find the edge of the recharge slab to grab hold of it, but as soon as he applied any force his fingers just passed through it. Then he felt some shift in the sensation in his spike that must have been Starscream’s valve clenching, and he let out a cry as he bucked upwards, only barely managing not to overload.

“You know, you’re very squirmy for a dead bot” Starscream said grinning.

“And y-you’re… _ah_ …sur- _hngh_ -prisingly c-considerate for a – _ah_ – _necrophiliac_ ,” Bee managed to retort.

Starscream cackled in response as he started to bounce through Bee’s spike at an increasing rate, watching with glee as the minibot scrambled desperately on the precipice of his overload. This wasn’t one of the _best_ frags he’d ever had, but it was definitely one of the most interesting.

As Starscream increased his pace Bee began to realise that there was no use trying to resist any longer, so he just gave in and let the tsunami of pleasure he had been struggling to hold back wash him away as he let out a rapturous scream. He trembled violently as wave after wave of bliss wracked his phantom frame, and he felt like he might somehow die all over again. He arched up off the recharge slab so that he overlapped with Starscream’s midsection, and the fluid that spurted from his spike passed through Starscream’s cockpit and made a mess over Bee’s front.

Starscream watched Bee’s overload intently, drinking in every shifting note in his cry and shudder of his frame like they were fine engex, as he quickened the pace on his spike. He didn’t feel the charge of Bee’s overload jump over to him as it did with real bots, but he felt the tingling sensation where their bodies overlapped grow more intense. By the time Bee’s overload had finally subsided and he’d collapsed in a wreck, Starscream had managed to reach his own. Through the haze of his pleasure he continued to stare at the bot beneath him as the fluid ejaculated from his spike went to join the mess the minibot had already made across his front, only to pass right through the spectral bot instead.

***

Bee wasn’t sure how long he had spent paralysed in his afterglow, but when he steadily came to he noticed Starscream’s legs overlapping him slightly, and he weakly looked over to see the jet lying peacefully on his back, positioned correctly on his recharge slab. Very slowly and feebly, Bumblebee rolled over and started to crawl over to the space on the slab besides Starscream, and found that he was still awake, staring at the ceiling through the haze of his own afterglow. It made Bee’s spark flicker with happiness to spot a satisfied smile on Starscream’s lips. He was certainly fond of Starscream, he wouldn’t deny it, and _yes_ , he was pretty obviously attracted to him as well, there was no denying that either. They were… _friends_ , yes that seemed like a fair thing to call them at this point, Bee decided. Friends with benefits sure, but that type of arrangement was a standard state of affairs among both the Autobot and Decepticon ranks, so it wasn’t the type of relationship dynamic Bee would typically have any trouble with. This was good; Starscream needed to become a more compassionate leader, and few things could soften a bot’s spark like the kindness of a good friend. Plus if they both got certain extra benefits out of this state of affairs, all the better for both of them, right?

Starscream noticed some movement to the side of him, and turned his head to see Bumblebee collapsing onto the slab next to him with an expression of dopey satisfaction on his face. He felt that same silly twinge of fondness at the sight of him, but he was in too much of a pleasurable daze to bother trying to analyse it at that moment. He had been intending to amble over to his washracks to get himself cleaned up before he dove into his work, but he supposed he had time to keep lying there a _little_ longer.

Bee had been incapable of recharging ever since he’d died, but he’d found that he could sometimes slip into a state on the edge of consciousness much like the drowsy comfort that typically preceded entering recharge, and spending some time in such a state could leave him feeling a little refreshed. When he was in this restful state his thoughts tended to flow freely, like he was dreaming without the delusion of his visions being real. As he lay next to Starscream, he drifted into quasi-dreams of tender post-coital touches and sweet whispered nothings shared by the most intimate of friends.


	5. Like Jack and Sally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No I'm not dead, but if I was it would certainly fit the theme of this chapter. 
> 
>  
> 
> _Angst ahoy._

In the eons they’d know each other prior to Bee’s death, Bee had occasionally witnessed Starscream in scenarios that had laid bare some of the things the mech kept hidden beneath his petty surface traits. In the course of four million years it was inevitable that they’d learn some of the more deeply hidden things about each other. This vast amount of time, together with the fact that Bee had been a spy, while the Decepticons had also been prone to public displays of dramatics, had given Bee some insight into who Starscream was beneath the caricature he otherwise masqueraded as. Sometimes it was so easy to think of the enemy, who had caused Bee and his friends so much suffering, simply as evil agents of malice, out to cause pain for its own sake. Despite this, Bee had always known that this wasn’t true, and that the Decepticons were individuals as complex as himself and his fellow Autobots, with twisted, misguided logic and rage telling them that the monstrous things they were doing were somehow right. Deep down he could admit that even Starscream, who was renown for his pettiness, self-interest, and callousness, was more than a one-dimensional bad guy.

Still, the moments throughout the war in which Starscream’s moral and emotional complexity could be glimpsed were so very rare that it was easy to still see him as nothing more than a shallow, sociopathic narcissist the vast majority of the time. Bee had witnessed enough scattered moments over the course of the war to indicate that there was _something_ going on beneath the surface where Starscream was concerned, and sometimes in the wake of those moments Bee had pondered the deeper nature of his enemy. However, he still thought of Starscream primarily as the murderous, immoral and cruel Decepticon SiC who had tortured him and killed people he called friends, among so many others. Sure, Starscream might have hidden depths, but that didn’t matter much to Bee when the jet had his null-rays in his face. Even after the war had supposedly ended and Bee and Starscream were no longer trying to actively kill each other, Bee still thought of Starscream as a petty, manipulative murder more than anything. Whatever hidden emotional complexity he might possess was overwhelmed by his cruel pettiness and ruthless ambition as far as Bee was concerned, and Starscream’s behaviour made him just so easy to hate. To him, Starscream was an enemy first, and a person second.

But now everything was completely different. Instead of briefly glimpsing rare moments scattered over millions of years in which Starscream showed some vague indication of being anything more than a shallow caricature puppeted by petty desires, Bumblebee now had a clearer view than ever of what lay beneath the veil of Starscream’s narcissistic mask. He could no longer view him as some kind of one-dimensional “other”, lacking in the fundamentals of personhood that allowed emotional connections to form, instead he knew intimately what kind of emotionally complicated and fraught person Starscream was. However, it wasn’t until Windblade’s death that Bumblebee truly saw into the depths of Starscream’s spark.  

In the moment that it became apparent that Windblade had been successful in her mission to seize control of Carcer, Bumblebee had seen Starscream’s smile and known without a doubt that he was in love with her. Somehow this was both mind-blowing and completely unsurprising; it had already been plainly obvious that Starscream was intrigued by and attracted to Windblade, and after she saved him from Sentinel Prime, it became clear to Bee that Starscream’s fascination with her was about so much more than just lust and rage. Bumblebee had already surmised that Starscream’s feelings for Windblade were complicated, but after she risked her life to save him from Sentinel’s spark extractor his attitude towards her seemed to shift from highly ambivalent to...something else. His feelings for her didn’t seem to get any less complicated, but they did seem to become more positive overall – at least in private – and he managed to grow even more obsessed with her. That was when Bee started to suspect that Starscream was falling for Windblade, a possibility that left him reeling. Sure, he knew that Starscream had emotional depths that he kept locked and hidden away, and he knew that Starscream wanted an emotional as well as physical connection with another bot, but still, the idea of _Starscream in love_ – particularly in love with a bot like Windblade – was just so intensely _weird_.  

Bee had recalled with some amusement his earlier concern about the kind of bot Starscream might become romantically intertwined with if he got the chance. He’d worried that he might gravitate towards a fellow moral degenerate who would encourage and enable the worst parts of him – a fear that was made all the more acute when Starscream flirtatiously took the serial killer Airachnid into his employ. Bee supposed that Starscream’s earlier crush on Wheeljack should have tipped him off, but for some reason he never really suspected that Starscream would truly fall for a bot like...well, a bot kinda like himself.  

Yet falling for a bot was by no means the same as becoming romantically involved with them, and it was with a strange sense of sadness that Bee considered how unlikely it was that Windblade would ever reciprocate Starscream’s feelings. It was for the best anyway, Bumblebee reminded himself – Windblade didn’t need to bear the burden of becoming any more deeply involved with Starscream’s slag than she already was. The sad truth was that bots like Windblade would always ultimately recognise that Starscream was no good for them, and rightfully reject any romantic overtures he offered, leaving him to instead fall into the arms of bots like Airachnid, who were no good for _him_. Still, Bumblebee considered, _his_ feelings for Starscream had changed after he’d got to know him better. _Not that **he**_ was in love with him or anything, but he’d certainly grown _fond_ , which was something Bee would have once never thought possible. So if Bee’s feelings for Starscream could change so dramatically in a positive way, maybe other bots similar to himself could learn to like Starscream as well...and maybe one day even love him.  

Bumblebee didn’t want to see Windblade exposed to anymore unpleasantness, but he considered whether a romantic relationship with Starscream would be unpleasant _by necessity_. Sure, it almost definitely would be, but maybe, just _maybe_ , it didn’t absolutely _have_ to be. After all, Starscream did have his companionable moments, and there was something vaguely resembling a moral compass somewhere in there, albeit an intensely malfunctioning one. Perhaps with the right guidance, Starscream could eventually develop into the sort of person who could give a bot like Windblade the kind of relationship they deserved. And what did Bumblebee have to do with himself other than offer Starscream guidance?  

What’s more, in the moments Starscream and Windblade actually did work together instead of against each other, they got a lot done. One might even argue that facilitating a more positive bond between them was in the best interests of Cybertron, Bee reasoned, something he became all the more convinced of when he watched them plot together to save the planet from the invading Titan hoard. When Bee saw Starscream’s smile and knew without a shadow of a doubt that he really was in love with her, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of gleeful excitement thinking about the possibilities the future might hold, possibilities he could help make realities with his advice and prompting.

This made learning of Windblade’s death less than an hour later so much worse. Her death was in itself very upsetting; Bumblebee didn’t exactly have a conventional relationship with her, and he supposed that he technically couldn’t call her a friend, but that didn’t change the fact that he had grown fond of her. He respected her tremendously as well, seeing her as one of the few bots holding any sort of power on Cybertron who had both the right kind of intentions and will to follow through on them. Consequently, hearing the news that she had been found brain dead had hit Bee hard, but knowing that Starscream had finally let his defences rust enough to allow someone into his spark, only to have them then snatched anyway before he could do anything about it, added another layer of pain to it all.

After Cybertron had been saved from the Titan hoard Starscream had seemed more ecstatic than Bee could remember seeing him in hundreds of millennia, and Bee had felt so absurdly happy for him in turn. Obviously their world having just been been saved was a major factor in this, but Bee was also pretty sure that an aspect of Starscream’s giddiness was him flying high on the feeling of being head over heel thrusters in love. When he had received the report that Windblade had been found brain dead he had froze, a dozen emotions flickering almost imperceptibly across his face before it had become an impassive mask. He had asked the messenger if they were sure and was told that while further tests were needed, the preliminary checks performed by the medics had indicated that Windblade was gone. Starscream’s face and wings had twitched, and for a moment Bee thought that he was going to explode with rage, before he simply passed along the order to ensure Windblade’s body was taken to a high priority medical facility immediately, his voice completely devoid of emotion.

After that the spark of joy that had set Starscream alight for that precious brief time was completely extinguished. His demeanour wasn’t just cold and neutral, it was a vacuum. He acted like a drone, mechanically going through the motions of dealing with the aftermath of the attack, emptiness behind his optics. Bumblebee quietly despaired besides him, both in empathy for what Starscream was going through and in fear for what the loss of Windblade as a restraining force and softening influence, together with the fresh emotional trauma of lost love, would do to Starscream’s development into a better person. Part of him feared that Cybertron’s chance for just rulership had died with Windblade. When everything that immediately needed to be handled had been handled, and Starscream finally had the opportunity for some brief recharge, he just lay on his recharge slab, staring at the ceiling with a blank expression.

“…do you want to talk about it?” Bee had ventured.

“Talk about what,” Starscream had responded, his voice as expressionless as his face.

It was more or less the reaction Bee had been expecting.

It wasn’t long after Starscream woke up that whatever barrier he’d thrown up in defence against his own emotions started to show signs of decay. Starscream often played the part of a cold and unsentimental schemer, apathetic to the passions of the spark, but as much as Starscream was known for his cold and cruel callousness, he was also known for his passionate hatred of Megatron, his burning jealousy, and his hungry ambition. He was an emotional creature as much as he was an emotionally repressed and stunted one, and Bee could see the signs of his grief seeping through his denial. Subtle little indicators were there on his face, in his voice, and in the way his demeanour changed whenever Windblade (or anything that reminded him or her) was mentioned.  

It…moved Bee, in a way. Bumblebee was deeply familiar with grief; it haunted and hurt him, and yet he was strangely grateful and relieved by it. Grief reminded him that even after all the loss he’d suffered, he at least hadn’t lost his capacity to care about others, and form a connection with them. Watching Starscream grieve, in his own maladjusted way, made it clearer than ever to Bee that Starscream had the ability to truly care about at least some people other than himself, and knowing that he could honestly love another person and suffer from their loss made Bee feel his own connection with Starscream deepen. It was like that vital aspect of Bee’s spark that granted him his sense of meaning and capacity for profound emotion was recognising a mirroring aspect of Starscream, and reaching out in empathy.

In the days that followed the attack Starscream was run ragged by his responsibilities as ruler as he dealt with the fallout. On top of his already depressive and grief-stricken emotional state, the stress and exhaustion of dealing with all of Cybertron’s drama caused Starscream to grow increasingly sickly in mind, body and spirit. He hardly took any time to recharge or refuel, and he certainly didn’t take any time to reflect on his feelings, he just moved on robotically from one task to the next, looking more and more exhausted in every sense. Bee worried about how Cybertron might be impacted by having a leader in such a rundown state, but he also worried about Starscream for his own sake.

After silently watching Starscream try to read the same short paragraph for a minute straight through unfocused optics, Bee approached him and gently suggested, “How about you get some rest?”

Starscream barely summoned up the energy to shake his head, “This needs to be done,” he rasped.

“It will be a lot easier to do once you’ve had some rest,” Bee insisted softly.

“I want it done now,” Starscream replied, but he didn’t sound stubborn so much as exhausted.

Bee would have been annoyed at Starscream’s characteristic uncooperativeness, but he was too busy feeling bad for him instead, “Starscream, you’re not getting anywhere with that, but if you get some rest and return to it with fresh optics you’ll have much more luck, I promise.”

Bee used the word promise out of a desperate desire to help, but it was a word that normally would have riled Starscream up. Now however, Starscream didn’t find himself feeling upset at Bee’s promise or annoyed by his nagging, all he felt was emptiness. There was a hollowness within him where there had previously been…something, something he hadn’t fully realised had been there, but now that it was gone the stinging edges of the void where it had been mapped out a revealing shape. Or at least it would have been revealing if Starscream had taken any time to examine it, but an ancient lifetime of being involved in genocide, fascism and war crimes had taught Starscream better than to examine unfamiliar feelings too closely. It was so much safer and easier to focus on his ambition, his rage, and surviving from day to day. But now there was this black hole within him that consumed his every moment, and he didn’t understand it – he didn’t want to understand it.

“I can’t recharge anyway,” Starscream muttered. This was barely an exaggeration; Cybertronians needed to get roughly ten hours of recharge every five days for optimal performance – it had been almost a fortnight since the attack and Starscream had found the opportunity for five, and had only actually recharged for two of them. When he lay down on his recharge slab his processor swam with half-formed thoughts and anxieties, while that void inside him ceaselessly consumed him. When he eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion, it wasn’t long before he had to get up again.  

“Then you don’t have to recharge, just lay on your slab and...relax,” Bee allowed a note of suggestion to enter his voice. Ideally he wanted Starscream to rest, but at that point he would be happy to see him take any kind of break and experience any sort of happiness, regardless of how base and mechanical it might be. The two of them hadn’t...fooled around since Starscream had changed his frame, but in the sparse opportunities Starscream had found to recharge since then, Bumblebee had laid on his slab next to him, watching him rest through half-lidded optics. It was just...relaxing, was all – if Bee couldn’t recharge himself, he could at least have the experience vicariously through someone else, and it seemed way less creepy to watch someone sleeping who knew he was there watching them. The very fact that Starscream didn’t object to Bee lying there next to him suggested that Starscream was getting something out of it anyway, so really Bee was doing it for _Starscream’s_ sake, so it was _fine_.  

Starscream was _just_ lucid enough to pick up on the suggestion in his hallucination’s voice, and he quietly regarded the spectre for a moment before he wordlessly rose from his seat and started walking towards his chambers. He didn’t want to try recharging, but he did want to try feeling _something else_.

Bee allowed himself a little smile of victory as Starscream walked past him, before he followed him into his chambers. Starscream just collapsed onto his back on his recharge slab and then spent a moment simply staring at his ceiling with an expression of exhausted melancholy, before he turned his face to Bee expectantly. Bee froze awkwardly for a second, as he hadn’t really thought this out, before he quickly pulled himself together and left his cane to rest against the wall, and then crawled onto the recharge slab next to Starscream. He curled up on his side next to him and gazed at him tenderly as he reached out and ran the tips of his fingers along his cheek, granting them both the barest shadow of a sensation of contact, “You’ve been working so hard and you've done so much to help Cybertron, you deserve to feel good for that,” Bee whispered sweetly.  

Starscream’s expression remained melancholy, but it did soften ever so slightly at Bee’s words. Starscream knew that this was just his madness speaking, and that all these words were empty, but he decided that right now he didn’t care. If giving into his insanity was what it would take to feel anything other than hollow, then so be it.  

“And I want you to feel good, to make you feel good,” Bee told him as he ran his thumb over Starscream’s bottom lip. He moved his hand downwards and considered running his fingers over the sensitive neck cabling there, but decided against it. After the violence of the war many Cybertronians went into panic attacks if they felt anyone touch their neck cables, and given Starscream’s particular experiences with abuse he thought it best to skip past the neck and move to the cabling that connected arm to torso. He let his fingers sink into the cables to reach areas only his ghostly touch could get to, and continued to whisper sweet nothings. “You’re so beautiful when you’re feeling pleasure; I’m so lucky you let me watch,” he said, trying for sexy but ending up with a tone that sounded more sincere than anything.

It seemed to work however – Starscream made a little sound as his cooling fans kicked on, and the glaze over his optics seemed to be from lust as much as it was from exhaustion. He lifted one of his hands – which trembled slightly from fatigue – and started to slowly trace along the seams on his torso.  

Bumblebee moved his hand from the cabling around Starscream’s shoulder so that it phased through the armour covering the side of Starscream’s turbine as he worked his way forward towards the exposed fan at the front, and carried on with his rather sparkfelt sounding dirty talk, “Thank you for letting me watch, and thank you for letting me try to touch you. I wish I could touch you for real, I’d do all sorts of things to you I know would make you feel amazing, and I would feel amazing too just knowing I’d made you feel that way.”  

Starscream made another little noise as he slipped his hand from his torso down to the covers of his wetware panels and started to grind his palm against them. He gazed at Bee, his expression now far less melancholy, though not exactly joyful either; it was an intense stare softened by exhaustion.  

Bee ran his fingers through Starscream’s turbines, painlessly phasing through the sharp fan blades. He returned Starscream’s intent gaze as he continued to speak, “I wish I could touch you and I wish I could taste you; I know you would taste as good as you look, and I could do more with my mouth to pleasure you than just whisper in your audial. You could just lie back and let me do all the work, and not think about anything but the pleasure I gave you, or you could take charge and tell me exactly what you wanted me to be doing between your legs, and I would obey.”

Starscream let out a long moan as his spike emerged and he wrapped his hand around it, before he started to stroke it languidly. Bumblebee broke optic contact with Starscream for a moment to drink in this sight, and he started to feel his own spectral form begin to heat up.

“You really are gorgeous,” he whispered as he moved his hand down to the panel covering Starscream’s interfacing cables and phased through it to run his fingers through the cables housed inside, making Starscream give a little shudder, and then met Starscream’s optics again “...but you’re also so much more. I know that now, and knowing who you are makes me want you. Once I would have thought being stuck with you was torture, but being alone was torture, and you saved me from that. I’m glad I’m with you, and I hope I can make you happy that I’m with you as well. Thanks to you I’m not alone, so I’ll make sure you won’t have to be alone either.”

In a sudden burst of reserve energy Starscream abruptly leapt up off his back and flipped onto all fours so that he was looming over Bee. For a second Bee thought that Starscream was trying to attack him, but then Starscream reached out for him with a trembling hand and Bee looked into his face and found no aggression there, instead he saw Starscream almost _weeping_ with frustration as his hand passed through Bee’s incorporeal form. As Bee looked at Starscream he saw how he himself felt mirrored back to him; the all-consuming frustration at being unable to touch or be touched tormented him, and when he looked at Starscream’s clenched teeth and desperate eyes, Bee thought the jet looked just as tormented. It made Bee feel...strangely gratified to think that Starscream was being driven as mad by the inability to touch him as Bee was being driven mad by the inability to touch _anyone_ or _anything_ at all (but...especially by his inability to touch Starscream). It made him feel gratified and...kind of excited, but more than anything it made him want to soothe Starscream’s torment.  

“Hey, it’s alright,” Bee told him gently as he reached out with his own hand to phase it through the hand that reached for him. He gazed into Starscream’s desperate face and tried to project a comforting aura when a thought occurred to him, “Do you have a false valve?” he asked.  

Starscream nodded with that same desperation.  

“Could you get it? I have an idea,” Bee told him.

Starscream rummaged frantically through a compartment in his nightstand before he pulled out a cylinder with a blue valve opening on one end that was invitingly adorned with glowing red biolights. Bee spread his legs wide and allowed his valve cover to slide open, revealing his dripping valve, which he then pried open with his fingers as he gave a little shiver, “Put it inside me,” Bee instructed.

For a moment Starscream’s exhaustion-addled processor was a bit lost – that wasn’t what false valves were for – but then he caught on. He reached into Bee’s phantom form with the false valve and magnetised it to the recharge slab in the right position so that its opening overlapped with the opening of Bee’s own valve. Bee gave a little moan as he felt the ghostly sensation of the toy inside him, overlapping with sensitive internal nodes, and he let the fingers that had been prying open his valve entrance wander upwards to absently rub his anterior node. Starscream took hold of his spike again and rubbed its tip against the opening of the false valve, which engaged its lubrication protocols, and once he could feel its lubricant he started to work his spike inside with a groan.

As Starscream started to push himself into the false valve, Bumblebee returned his fingers to his valve opening, pushing them inside himself at the same rate Starscream entered the toy. He gave a gasp and then a moan at the combined sensations of the toy inside him with Starscream’s spike in turn moving inside it, together with the more solid sensation of his fingers moving at the same pace. Starscream buried himself all the way in to the base of his spike, before pulling himself almost all the way out, and then thrust himself back in as deep as he could once more, as Bumblebee continued to mimic his movements with his fingers. Starscream’s deep thrusts grew faster and faster and Bee matched his pace, while they both made little, desperate noises of pleasure as they did the best they could to simulate the intimacy they both so deeply craved.  

Starscream stared at the minibot gasping and writhing in pleasure beneath him as he thrust into the slick entrance that he found himself so desperately wanting to believe belonged to the bot below him, so that Starscream would be the reason he was feeling all that pleasure. _What pleasure?_ Bumblebee wasn’t real, so his pleasure was nothing but a hallucinogenic display, and since when did Starscream care about other people’s pleasure beyond how it would serve him anyway? Since when did other people matter to him _at all?_ Why should they? No one had any right to his affection, not when they always, _always_ betrayed him, hurt him, and left him alone. Why should he try to do better by others when the universe didn’t care about any of his efforts, and would snatch away anything good he had built and gleefully crush it before his optics? The universe didn’t give a slagging scrap about “goodness” or “kindness”; it would punish everybody indiscriminately for the crime of existing. He’d had the right idea before; the universe wouldn’t offer any rewards or protection in exchange for good deeds, it wasn’t going to look out for him, so it was up to him to look out for himself. He didn’t have time to look out for other people, and he knew that sometimes using and sacrificing them was the only way to survive the universe’s cruel whimsy. Caring about others was foolish, and to care about anyone who didn’t understand these things themselves was the most foolish thing of all.  

Then so what if Bee’s pleasure was nothing but an empty display? The pleasure and pain of anyone else only existed as much as he chose to allow it to anyway. He’d long ago learnt how to stop thinking and caring about whatever pain he was causing others on the way to achieving his goals, and if he couldn’t feel their pain and wasn’t thinking about it, as far as he was concerned it might as well not exist. Why should he even care what was real and what wasn’t? Reality was brutish and meaningless; something to be survived, not held in regard. So what if he had lost his grip on reality? He just needed to navigate it well enough to stay alive and in control, beyond that, falling into sweet and tender madness was a welcome relief.  

He’d denied the thought that Bee could be anything other than a figment of his imagination, regardless of the suspicious knowledge he somehow possessed, because it seemed too absurd to consider any other option. The universe just didn’t work that way – there was no great supernatural arbiter who gave the unjustly murdered a second chance at life to teach their enemies compassion; this wasn’t a fairy-tale. Yet at the same time, it had been almost as hard to believe that any part of himself could act anything like Bumblebee. Whatever potential he may have once possessed for such warmth and goodness had been murdered millions of years ago.  

But again, what did it matter if Bee was real or not? All that mattered was that a dead bot couldn’t die again and leave him alone. Whether a ghost or a hallucination, Bee was by his side as his constant companion, the one abiding thing in this fragile world that Starscream held in his hands. If Bee was a ghost then it was only appropriate that a killer such as Starscream should find comfort with a member of the dead, and if Bee was his hallucination then it was only appropriate that a narcissist such as Starscream should find understanding with a figment of his own imagination. Whatever Bee was, he was with Starscream now, as one of the few things he allowed to matter in a universe devoid of any meaning. Frag _anyone_ or _anything_ else, they had each other, and all the rest could be left to rust.  

“Starscream – _ah_ – that feels so _good!_ _Yes!_ ” Bumblebee cried, and not just to stroke Starscream’s ego. Having Starscream above him thrusting in sync with the fingers in his valve, together with the ghostly feeling of Starscream’s spike inside him, made it so that Bee could almost imagine that this was a real interface between them, and he fiercely clung to that fantasy. He reached up with his free hand to continue phasing his fingers through the sensitive parts of Starscream’s torso, and through the haze of his lust and pleasure he felt a stirring of curiosity. He ran his fingers through Starscream’s cockpit glass and wondered what would happen if he were to reach in a little further to make contact with Starscream’s spark. Typically, only the most intimate and trusting of lovers caressed each other’s sparks during interface, and Bumblebee wasn’t about to suggest anything so emotionally and spiritually intense, but he couldn’t help but wonder if his current state meant that he could theoretically take things even further. Lovers almost always only lightly caressed the coronas of each other’s sparks, because to sink one’s fingers in any deeper was far too risky. But given bots had accidentally walked right through Bee without causing any obvious damage to either of them, it seemed that Bee couldn’t damage a spark with his spectral body, so he couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like if he sunk his fingers into someone’s spark with intimate intent...

He withdrew his fingers from Starscream’s cockpit and returned them to his turbines and interfacing panels before that line of thought could run away with him, and went back to focusing on the fantasy they were caught up in. He imagined that there was no obstacle of incorporeality standing between himself and Starscream, and that instead his rippling valve was clenched tightly around Starscream’s spike as Starscream moved in and out of him, brushing up against his most sensitive nodes. He imagined that they were together not because they had no one else to turn to, but because a mutual, burning desire and deep longing had pulled them irresistibly towards each other. He imagined that for _once_ everything outside wasn’t on the verge of going to The Pit yet again, but was instead peaceful, meaning that they didn’t have to care about it, so in the moments they shared their entire world could just be each other.

“Starscream...Starscream... _ahhhh_ ,” Bee chanted his name like it was a desperate prayer to Primus, “I...you...you make me feel – **_nnggghh_** **_!_ ** Yes! _Oh frag, **Starscream!**_ ”at the rapturous cry of his name, Starscream started to tremble, and Bee watched as ribbons of blue electricity blossomed outwards from his spark as Starscream gave his own cry of pleasure and – more than anything – tremendous relief. Bumblebee quickened the pace of his fingers inside his valve to catch himself up, and it wasn’t long before he was joining Starscream in his blissful overload, during which he forgot that his fantasy was exactly that.  

Starscream collapsed onto his side, and Bee rolled over to face him. Starscream looked even more exhausted than before, but now there was almost no trace of his prior melancholy; he looked incredibly tired, but satisfied, _almost happy_. Bumblebee smiled peacefully – and with a sense of accomplishment – as he watched the light of Starscream’s optics fade as he finally fell into recharge.  

Bee had...said a lot of things with the intention of making Starscream feel good, for the sake of his mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing, and by extension for the sake of Cybertron itself. But he had to admit to himself that just because he had this motive for saying the things that he’d said, that didn’t mean that some of it wasn’t true. He did truly care about Starscream, and wanted to see him happy for his own sake, not just because it was what was good for Cybertron. There were times when he truly did take pleasure in his company, and not just the visceral pleasure of interfacing. He...he felt...he felt close to Starscream. Really close.

He quietly watched Starscream recharge as his spark pulsed with warmth and fondness, and considered how, despite all that was happening, and all that had happened, in this precious brief window of time, secluded together in the secrecy of that room, things were somehow alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wraps up the sort of windscream trilogy I ended up having in the middle of this fic. The next chapter will explore one of Starscream's past relationships a little, but aside from that things are gonna be more or less pure starbee from this point forward. 
> 
> Speaking of starbee, I'm organising a [Starbee Week](https://brandxspandex.tumblr.com/post/184559748184/you-know-what-the-world-is-always-in-need-of-more) for mid-June, so hopefully there will be a bunch more starbee content coming out of that from myself and others. If you would like to contribute, that would be amazing.


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